Here Today Dead Tomorrow
by RoseMac
Summary: Sequel to Home Sweet Dead.  What else is the supernatural world going to throw at Eric and Sookie?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is a sequel to Home Sweet Dead. I won't say that it makes no sense if you haven't read Home Sweet Dead, but it will make a lot more sense if you read Home Sweet Dead.

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything and don't claim to.**

**Prologue – Bill's Tale…**

It was the hottest night we'd had so far this year, but that wasn't surprising considering it was March and spring had arrived in the South. I parked in the visitors' parking lot and sat for a moment wondering why I was doing this, beyond the obvious reason that it was what one must do, whether you subscribed to vampire or human etiquette – and even by human etiquette I was falling just under the grace period. They'd been married in early April after all, so it had taken me eleven months to bring myself to this point. I glanced again at the large crate in the back seat of my car and felt pleased and idiotic all at the same time. Pleased because I knew it was the perfect gift for Sookie and idiotic because I knew that my thoughtfulness was, as she might say, locking the barn door after the cows have got out, a day late and a dollar short or any of the other charming human expressions that meant meaningless, too late gesture. But my thinking was that if I must by a wedding present for my Sheriff and the woman that he stole from me, and whom I still considered rightfully mine, well, I wanted it to be one that would make her stop and think about what might have been.

I do not believe that I have much – or any – hope of winning back Sookie, but it would please me to no end if she would perhaps feel a moment of regret. And if not that, then perhaps she would feel a twinge of guilt that she did not think to invite me to the wedding or even tell me herself that she and Eric planned to marry or that they had married once it happened.

In fact, I had heard the news as they were heading toward Vermont. I had come to Fangtasia one night after I had heard of Eric and Sookie's safe return, planning to offer my services in their future efforts against Madden or the Fellowship of the Sun, but instead I had found the bar relatively empty and being run by Fitzgerald, who had returned to the area. Thalia had laughed when I asked where everyone was and commented that I must really be on the outside now. Then she filled me in on recent events and the upcoming nuptials. It had been one of the more humiliating experiences of my existence.

At first I had felt enraged. Who was this mortal chit to make me feel this way? I was vampire. I was eternal. I was the night and the darkness. And apparently I was also jilted by a human so disinterested in our previous romance that it didn't even occur to her to call me and let me know she was getting married. I had once believed myself to be better than Sookie. Interesting how beliefs can shift. She, clearly, had not agreed with that assessment for quite some time.

I sat in my car in the lot at Fangtasia wondering what to do next. I could sense her vaguely, coming closer. She was not inside yet. I wanted her to be there when I brought the gift in. I turned my head and looked down the street to see her car entering the parking lot. So different. No more beat-up clunkers for Sookie. She pulled her shiny, new BMW into the lot and parked. She exited the car and stretched her back looking around the lot for a moment as if she sensed something and then removing her suit jacket, to reveal a silky lavender camisole underneath, and pining her hair up to expose her neck, shoulders and so much lovely skin. She must be coming from work. The camisole might look sexy, but the plain black skirt suit was all FBI.

The car and the clothes were only a bi-product of Sookie's transformation; it was her confidence that made her glow. She had always been lovely, sometimes even beautiful, but these days it seemed, she was always beautiful and sometimes radiant and always, always sexy. Eric certainly seemed to have awakened something in her and I didn't care to examine that too closely.

She turned her head, gazed out in to the parking lot, looking almost directly at my car, but she didn't see me at all. What a testament that was to our current relationship! And then she smiled and it looked like someone had turned on the sun.

She started moving toward my car, but I could tell by her gaze she had not seen me. I swung my head around and saw Eric appear at the edge of the parking lot holding a bag that I could smell from here - take-out, maybe Thai. I felt vaguely ill. They reached each other, almost in front of me not that they noticed. I watched as he snaked a large arm around her waist and pulled her in for a deep kiss. When they finally broke apart, she looked heavy-lidded and I could practically smell her desire from here, probably it would have been clearer if not for the pungent odor of the Thai food.

I'd heard that Sookie had been away on business for several days. Eric held up the bag and said something about dinner. I had to assume that he was talking about Sookie's dinner – Eric's was obviously standing in front of him practically quivering in anticipation, it disgusted me or possibly that was jealousy. She peeked into the bag and smiled, lacing her fingers through his, they headed into the club.

I took a moment to relax, slowly loosening my grip on the steering wheel one finger at a time. How had I ever let it get to this point? Why hadn't I followed when Eric had taken her away after the fairy attacks? She had felt tenderly toward me then; I had felt it. She wondered about Eric's feelings toward her, but then he had proven them, running with her, leaving his position of power for her. Of course, it had all worked out for him so I could hardly cry for him.

After they had returned, I thought perhaps there was a chance, but I had been wrong. Pam had come to visit me shortly after their return. I had thought that her visit implied that perhaps Eric was insecure in Sookie's affections. If he was, he should not have been. Pam had come by to tell me that I needed to let Sookie go or I needed to leave Area 5. I had taken a moment before responding with as much condescension as I had been able to muster, "Eric threatens me?"

She had simply shrugged and replied, "She's not yours."

My reply had been filled with smugness so certain that they were falling into my trap; I was and am an idiot. "She is Eric's now?" I thought of how Sookie would react to that statement and wished she could hear it.

Pam had looked at me as disinterested as she could possibly look and said coolly, "She is her own. And Eric said I am to tell you that he will defend her belief that she is her own by any means necessary."

I had stared at her not knowing what to say to this most peculiar statement. Pam had stared right back, looking bored, but there was something behind the boredom, she would love for me to make it an issue. There were moments when I wondered who loved Sookie more Pam or Eric, but of course whenever I thought that I had to quickly remind myself that neither loved her, they were using her. It just looked like love.

We finished our staring contest when I realized that I might need to re-think my tactics with Sookie. Straight contest would not work. The oddest part of the conversation may have been when Pam looked back at me and said, "You think you know her Bill, but you don't know all of her."

Watching the events unfold after their return to Shreveport, I am forced to admit it was not a bad point, the Sookie that I knew did not run off for three years with a man toward whom she was uncertain of her feelings. She did not run from her responsibilities and her friends. She did not make lewd comments or shout at people. She did not impulsively make the decision to wed. And yet, here was this woman. The one I thought of as my Sookie.

I might believe that he was manipulating her; using her to cement his own power. I might detest his arrogance and flash, but Sookie did not. She had chosen Eric. More than once if I was truly honest about it. Maybe she was on the road to choosing him from the beginning and her relationship with me was merely a false start. And as I thought back to what I had seen I realized that Eric seemed to know Sookie on a level that I had never even seen.

But there was at least one part of her that he did not understand, her Southernism. Perhaps it was not much, but it was what I had. We had roots and to Sookie that mattered. Or it had, I didn't know if it would still. And in many ways, I had the easier road, I was nothing anymore, no one of importance other than a good earner, whereas Eric had forces stacking against him that he would need to defeat or at least hold at bay in order to keep Sookie alive and believing that she belonged to no one. It was quite a balancing act for him – if I had not hated him so completely I might have been impressed by what he was willing to undertake and how very much he must love her to engage in such insanity – all I had to do was position myself and wait for him to slip. I just needed to be there when he got himself killed. And have her feeling warmly toward me again like she had before.

I flicked my eyes to the crate in my car and felt extremely satisfied with my plan. I exited the car, removed the crate and headed into the club. Pam was standing just inside the door when I arrived carrying my oversized wedding gift. She was flipping through paperwork, but looked up when I arrived. She paused and said, "Nice box, Bill, but we usually leave the trash in the alley."

I was looking around the club. It was crowded, but I was not interested in the fangbangers, well, I suppose I was interested in one of them. They were there. In a booth at the back. Sookie was eating her dinner, which she appeared to be enjoying and talking animatedly. Although she was facing me, she didn't notice me. Eric's back was to me and I could not see his face, but it appeared that he was laughing at the story Sookie was telling.

I turned to Pam, "I've come with tribute or a wedding gift, however you want to look at it." I raised the box slightly to make my point.

Pam arched an eyebrow at me and replied, "I guess that would depend on who you were talking to."

She started moving toward the back booth. She made no indication that I should follow, but I did anyway. For a moment, I considered dropping the crate on the floor, kicking it across the room and moving to Europe, but I did not. Then I thought about simply challenging Eric for Sookie. I could win. Luck is always a factor, it happens. And perhaps she would hate me forever, but at least she would no longer be his. But instead, I found myself arriving at the booth with the large crate and setting it down in front of Sookie.

She scooted in to make room for me, "Hey Bill, what's all this?"

Eric just looked at me, curious, dangerous.

"It is a wedding gift," I explained succinctly.  
Sookie's mouth formed into a little round oh and I thought for a moment she was suddenly going to realize that she had not invited me to her wedding or even told me of her plan to wed, but she did not. Instead, she popped up and started inspecting the box all the while fussing that I hadn't needed to get them anything. She went on about how they hadn't needed any of the things they had gotten. And how it was so kind of me. Her fingers worked the top of the box for a while and finally she looked at Pam and said, "Is there a hammer or something in the back? I can't get this off and I don't want to cut myself trying."

Eric and Pam laughed at that as Eric reached up and without rising from his seat, flipped the lid off the box. The nails gave way with a soft pop, revealing the packing materials inside. She thanked him a little too breathlessly for my taste and his eyes took on a look I didn't much care for at all.

He watched her with that lusty look as she reached into the crate to pull out a china plate with a butter yellow border and blue flowers and birds adorning it. A look of distaste shot across Eric's face before he carefully masked his features into polite interest as Sookie ohhed and ahhed over the china, as I had known she would.

Unfortunately, she'd been so absorbed in the gift; she had missed his initial reaction. She handed him a plate reverently and reached back in to pull out a delicate teacup, so small that I doubted Eric would even be able to get more than a finger through the handle. I briefly enjoyed a picture of how ridiculous and oafish he would look trying to drink from one of those cups, but of course, why would he ever need to drink from one?

"Eric," she breathed sounding as if she was in church. "It's the Hale china. Gran had to sell all hers to pay for Jason to play football – pads and stuff, its real expensive, plus since he was all-state and everything – there were a lot of Hale's with money that wanted a more complete set. She was so sad about it, but we thought Jason might get a scholarship…" Eric mostly looked amused at the idea of Jason in college and not terribly interested in the china.

"Bill," she continued. "Where did you find it?"

I was the hero of the moment, as I'd known I would be. "I found five place settings, which I know –"

Pam broke in, "Five? What the hell is she going to do with five place settings? And it doesn't even match the dining room! We're going to have to have it re-painted and then the chairs will need to be re-upholstered. And now, I'm going to have to fill out the set."

"Pam," Eric said softly. And her mouth snapped shut. Pam shrugged and wandered off muttering about auction houses and Internet research and re-booking the painter.

"Bill," Sookie whispered, her eyes shining. "Thank you." And then she looked at Eric, "Pam's right, it doesn't match, I…" Her voice was raised in an unasked question.

"If you wish to redecorate around the china, its fine, Sookie. I don't care what color the dining room is."

She smiled so brightly, looking at him as if he'd just hung the moon in the sky, and I felt my own smile slip a little. Somehow I felt my gift had been trumped by his magnanimousness at redecorating to suit my thoughtlessness. And even I had to admit it he was willing to indulge her, I would have been annoyed by the idea of redecorating around china I didn't even like.

Sookie thanked me again and dropped a kiss on my cheek and excused herself to the ladies room. Eric sat watching me closely, just as I started to feel a little nervous that I was about to be expelled from the area he smiled. "Very nicely done, Compton. If you had thought of things like that four years ago you might have been more of a threat."

"I am a threat," I ground out fangs popping.

He leaned in to the table and grinned broadly finding my display of temper amusing. "No, you are not. But I admire your spirit, truly." Then after a pause he said, "You know there are real threats to Sookie. I understand that you'd be just as happy to see me meet my final death, but you don't want anything happening to her, do you? Work with me, will you." He didn't state it as a request, but more like he was talking to a very dim-witted child.

He leaned back and waved Sookie over to his side of the booth as she returned. She sat down next to him and snuggled into his side. We sat for a few moments making polite chitchat and then she looked at Eric, "I'm real tired." She turned to me and explained that she had been traveling for work that week. "Do you have to stay tonight?" she asked turning back to Eric.

He kissed the top of her head, "Of course not lover, you've been away all week. I simply came in until you returned."

She slid out of the booth and said she was just going to say goodbye to Pam. She slid out and made it about half way across the floor when a burly vampire I didn't recognize stopped her. I wouldn't have noticed it at all except that I saw Eric's eyebrows rise up into his hair and he slid toward the edge of the booth. Seeing his heightened awareness, I turned as well and saw the male grab Sookie's arm and ask her where she was going. She yanked her arm away with what must have been a great deal of force because she was able to break his grasp. He didn't like that. He twisted her other arm around behind her back, spinning her so her back was against him and his fangs popped out. I thought Sookie would call for help and was already rising to my feet, as was Eric, when she dropped to one knee and dipped her shoulder causing him to flip over her head. This would have worked nicely, if he had been a human, but he was not. He landed on his feet and faced her again before she could even right herself. I began moving toward the altercation to discover that somehow Eric was already in between them. I had never seen him move that fast. It was the speed of a vampire considerably older than even Eric's millennium.

"This is my wife," he hissed at the vampire. Pam was pulling Sookie away from the fight toward the bar.

The vampire, a visitor to our city, glared at Eric asking, "And who the fuck are you?"

Eric had been crouched defensively in front of Sookie, but he now straightened to his full height. "I am the Sheriff of this Area."

The vampire shrugged. "Listen friend, I didn't know she belonged to someone. I didn't mean to take your snack for tonight." He extended his hand. Eric glared down at the offending appendage looking as though he'd rather eat the foulest of human food than touch it.

"My wife," he repeated coolly and quietly, local vampires were backing away disliking his tone.

Sookie chimed in from the bar, where Pam was applying ice to her wrist, "Let it go, Eric. He's just a tourist with no manners. Just like a lot of other jackasses that come through here."

Eric did not remove his eyes from the visitor. The burly vampire look offended and cleared his throat, "Your pet just called me a jackass." Human pets did not insult vampires. Eric looked at him with a smirk, "This is a problem because…"

The new vampire began to look visibly angry. "She's a human," he snapped. "Are you placing a human before a vampire?"

Eric said nothing in response. He simply continued to stare the vampire down. Taking a step back, the newcomer stated, "She smells tasty. I can't believe you've never been asked to share. It must happen all the time."

Pam rolled her eyes from her position in front of Sookie, "How stupid are you? And how young? You smell like you're practically a baby." And then after a pause, she continued, "Just a baby, Eric."

It was silent in the club with the exception of the techno-beat that continued to blare through the DJs speakers.

The visitor squared his shoulders, "Prohibition." He sounded rather proud. It made sense; humans had been a bloodthirsty lot at that time in history.

"I'm not interested in teaching manners to a wayward child. Get the fuck out of my club," Eric ground out. "In fact, get the fuck out of my Area."

The vampire snorted. "She can't be worth it. Just another worthless fangbanger. At your age, you shouldn't be so dumb. Or are you like one of those old rich guys that really believes the blonde bimbo from Vegas loves you."

I did not see Eric move, but the vampire crashed through the doors of the club with the force of a rocket. "I said get out," Eric stated watching him go. I was certain Eric had done it, although as I said I had not seen him move. Pam was standing next to Sookie now. Supporting her. She looked pale. And Eric was moving quickly toward her, 'Ready dear one?" His words were casual, but his look was intense. He cradled her face with his palm, eyes searching.

She nodded, but said nothing. She put her hand to the bridge of her nose as though it ached and Eric kissed the tip of her nose and forehead. As the noises of the club returned to normal, he swept her off her feet and carried her out the now broken club doors. I caught Pam's eye as the crowd moved between us, but only for a moment before her eyes trailed after her master and his mate. She looked as concerned as I have ever seen Pam. I crossed the room toward her and whispered urgently, "Eric did throw him, yes?"

She stared at me in shock, "Of course, how else would he have gotten thrown?" And muttered something about order forms. She was gone before I had a chance to ask when Eric had gotten so fast that even a vampire couldn't track his movements.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks to everyone that has put Here Today Dead Tomorrow on alert! We're back to Sookie's point of view now and the rest of the story will be told from her POV.

I felt a large hand snake across my abdomen and pull me tighter against a hard cool body. I could never imagine getting tired of waking up like this, not even if I lived to be a thousand and who knew, maybe that would be the case? Of course I guess if it was the body wouldn't feel quite so cool. What got me every time was the feeling of security and rightness. I snuggled in closer and opened one eye sleepily to check the time. When I saw it I was flooded with a sense of guilt, 4:45pm. I'd wasted the entire day sleeping. I suppose you could argue that I was up all night, a lot, but I always felt guilty when I didn't do anything productive all day. At least it had been Saturday, so maybe I didn't need to feel too badly about it? Maybe that was reaching? I think my Gran would have thought it was reaching.

For Eric, however, 4:45 was practically the early bird catching the worm, especially in March. Since we'd been married Eric was rising earlier and earlier, during the middle of winter – which he really enjoyed calling the dead of winter – he'd been up at 2:30 some days. Usually though we ignored it. I had a feeling that today was a day that we were going to be talking about it and figured I might as well jump right in, "You're up pretty early."

He grunted and kissed my neck softly, "Perhaps that is because my wife, who has been away all week saving the world from criminals, fell asleep in the car coming home."

He sighed dramatically to let me know just how difficult his life was and I snickered, "Poor you."

Although I'd never admit it to him, I did feel sort of bad about falling asleep on the way home from Fangtasia. I'd had plans for last night and none of them had included being asleep any time before dawn. I'd even gotten new underwear. But since I'd been the one that had passed out and Eric had clearly been the one to remove the new underwear – in a very none fun way – he definitely topped me as far as frustration was concerned. "So you woke up an hour before dusk due to sexual frustration?"

He growled in my ear and moved with that freaky vampire speed pinning me underneath him, "Yes."

He was staring down at me in a way that left me feeling a little breathless, but I tried to keep the mood light, "We should fix that then." His thumb stroked my face and he just kept looking at me trying to see…I knew what he was trying to see, but I didn't want to talk about it yet. I wanted this first. I reached up and brushed his hair back over his shoulder and said tenderly, "I missed you."

I received an equally tender smile in return that was quickly replace by a bawdy one as he positioned himself against me, "And I you, as you can clearly tell by now."

He kissed me softly at first and but the intensity was building quickly. His hands slid down to my breasts, which were practically sitting up and begging for attention, and I gasped, it had been a long, lonely week. His mouth followed with worshipping kisses. "A week may be too long a trip," he murmured talking more to my left breast than to me.

I hissed in what had meant to be a warning. This trip, and the many others I had taken in the last three months, had been a bit of a sore point between Eric and I. He did not like the amount of travel that my job was requiring. Unfortunately, my hiss didn't sound anything like a warning, it sounded like wholehearted agreement that a week apart was akin to torture, which right at this exact moment, given what he was doing with his mouth and fingers, I probably would have agreed that even a minute apart would have seemed like torture. Annoyed at my own body changing sides on me, I decided to clarify the noise. "Don't start again. At least not right now. I missed you. I love you and dear god, do I want you. I don't want to fight."

"I will say nothing that will dampen your mood lover," he promised. "I am much more interested in dampening other parts of you."

And then he rolled, flipping me on top of him and pulling my nightgown, a lovely little peach slip he'd chosen last night, off in one fluid motion. Naked on top of him I looked down at his face, which looked back up at me with what I would almost call eager excitement if it hadn't had a distinct predatory look to it…can you be predatorily eager? I guess you probably can. We'd been parted for a week. It had to have been hard for him. Harder than it would be for a human. I had to remember that. I smiled at him, "You're incorrigible, you know that?"

"I am a vampire," he replied fangs popping and I giggled. He leered at me, "Perhaps you are afraid of monsters and would like to run?" He sounded more than a little hopeful. And he had a right to be hopeful because his question had dampened all the right parts of me as promised. I could feel the lust and the love swirling between us and felt overwhelmed by how lucky I was despite everything.

And then I let out a theatrical shriek and could have sworn that Eric's fangs, and other parts, grew larger at the sound. "Eeek! A vampire!"

Then I took off running. I didn't even make it out of the bedroom. Damn, he really was getting faster.

I popped a TrueBlood in the microwave and took two eggs out of the fridge for me. Sure, it was almost six in the evening, but it was still breakfast time for me. After all, I was still in my pajamas just now with a fluffy white bathrobe on top of it, so I really couldn't picture myself making a steak. Eric came in wearing some navy blue silk lounge pants, removed the True Blood from the microwave and smirked at the eggs. For some reason, he found my desire to eat breakfast at night endlessly amusing. I didn't see why it was so funny, but whatever, I liked his smile so if he wanted to laugh my little quirks, I was okay with it.

I settled down at the kitchen table with my eggs and coffee. When I'd first come down I had propped the door to the dining room open so I could look at it. The box of china was sitting on the floor next to the now open door, where I had to assume Eric had left it last night. I peered into the dining room thinking. He turned around and gazed into it as well, "You are going to redecorate?"

I popped a bite into my mouth, swallowed and then smiled at him, "Do you really not care or were you just trying to get Bill's goat?"

"He keeps goats?" Eric looked at me blankly and I stammered for a moment thinking how to explain the expression. Then he smiled.

"You ass," I laughed. "I thought you knew that one. Answer the question!"

He looked at the dining room again and shrugged, "I really don't care lover. Do what you like."

I chewed on my lower lip. It was a serious waste of money to decorate a room twice and I had not been raised to waste money on frivolity or whims. I said as much, "It's a waste of money."

He nodded. It couldn't be debated, it was. "It is, but the money isn't important. I have eons of time to make more. And you make plenty that you don't spend. A coat of paint won't break us financially, but if you're truly bothered you could always paint it yourself. I'll make Pam help."

I chuckled because I knew he would make Pam help. "I don't really have time to paint it myself," I murmured more to myself than to Eric, whom I was certain had become bored with this discussion almost the moment he started it. As expected, his patience gave way, "Sookie, you like the china yes?"

I nodded. "Since its main purpose is to be displayed, it must match the room, yes?"

Again, I nodded.

"Then paint the room a color that will match, purchase a new rug and do whatever else you need to do." He sounded exasperated and for some reason that was when I noticed that there was no iPhone in his hand. No Bluetooth in his ear. On days I went to work, I went through my "morning" rituals alone, but on days when we woke together, Eric was always working while I ate. He'd sit with me and he'd talk to me, but he'd take calls and answer emails while doing it. I know this bothers a lot of wives, but it didn't bother me. I eyed him suspiciously and sipped my coffee. He caught my look and eyed me back. Finally, after a long, not so loving staring contest I relented, "Okay, why don't you just get it off your chest?"

I thought he would pounce on the opportunity to tell me whatever it was that was so obviously under his skin, but instead, we sat for a long silent moment. From his feelings, I would say he was trying to figure out how to start an awkward conversation.

"You're worried," I stated.

"Not worried," he assured me. "Although I am perhaps…" he paused. "I am not worried yet. I am approaching concerned. Worried is still several doors down."

I mulled that over and drank my coffee in silence for a minute or two. One thing I have to give vampires, they can be patient. Maybe patient isn't the right word. Do you call lions patient when they're waiting for gazelles to arrive at the watering hole?

"Well, I don't think you have anything to be worried about," I finally said. And he gave me a significant look. Pretty much it said, give me a break. And there was a part of me that wanted to scream at him, "I know! I'm worried too!" But I didn't. Instead I just drank my coffee and we sat there for a few more minutes in silence.

The house phone rang and Eric cursed. He rose to answer it and then had an extremely short conversation with whomever was on the other line. He was back in a moment, leaning over me. "Sookie, we need to talk about what happened." I looked away feeling a little bit like a teenager caught out after curfew. He ignored my guilty posture and said softly, "I have a meeting, but come to the bar later." He kissed the top of my head, "Lover, you know there is nothing you can not tell me. I am yours."

I sat quietly for just a second thinking how to respond, but when I looked up he was already gone.

More than a little bit reluctantly, I followed him upstairs. I don't know why I was so unwilling to discuss this with him, maybe I just felt like we didn't need any more cards stacked against us. But I guess I've learned the hard way that hiding your head in the sand doesn't make a problem go away.

He was standing in front of the dresser performing a daily ritual that men everywhere undertake, loading up the pockets to go out. Wallet in the back pocket of his jeans; cell phone in the front pocket; wedding ring on finger; keys in hand. It felt odd to watch him do something so mundanely human. It felt strange, married, and ordinary. I liked it. He looked in the mirror and smiled at me.

"Can you stay for another fifteen minutes?"

He turned toward me looking curious as to what could be accomplished in fifteen minutes. Eric knew me well. He was used to it taking hours to drag information out of me. Discussions were never fifteen minutes long and neither was sex, so what could I want other than maybe for him to reach something off of a high shelf?

His eyes flicked toward the clock and I could see the internal debate play out across his face about where the line was between late and offensively late. I knew he came to the decision to stay, either because fifteen minutes wouldn't make him offensively late or he just didn't care, because his eyes flicked back to me and sort of leaned back against the dresser in a way that said, go ahead.

Up until that point I hadn't really thought about what I was going to say and I knew he wasn't going to wait long for me to make up my mind. Eric has a low bullshit threshold. And I didn't want to put this conversation off. I knew it would take me awhile to get up the courage again.

I focused on a hand painted vase from Italy that someone had sent us as a wedding present. I thought it was ugly, but I couldn't return it – vampires aren't good about gift receipts - and it seemed wasteful just to throw it away, somehow it had ended up in our bedroom. Well, lucky it. I guess it was this ugly vase's destiny to become part of my crazy supernatural world. I was starting to believe in things like that a lot more these days.

I focused harder on the vase and it slowly rose from its spot on the mantle of the fireplace. My destination was the bed. I got it about halfway across the room before the rest of my mind started interfering. I'd been playing around with this on my own a little bit, since the first time it happened when I was at work, and I'd noticed that when I was concentrating on moving stuff the rest of my brain seemed to go kind of crazy and I couldn't hold back the thoughts. I didn't know if they were premonitions or just my fears, but they flooded me.

I saw Victor hearing that I had a new ability. I felt the greed in his mind as he looked at me with covetous eyes. I remembered him lying on top of me in that stinking dungeon in Memphis, fangs out, wanting to turn me, to make me his. It was my most terrifying thought. I felt burning, searing hate take control of my head. I felt terror.

And then I felt another presence, cool and calm, soothing. It almost reminded me of aloe, weird huh? Like aloe for my brain, which in truth, felt like it was on fire, but there was the aloe presence coating it.

Eric was holding on to my wrists and had pushed me back against the wall. We were crouching on the floor. The vase was darting wildly around the room, berserk, a killer vase.

"Sookie," Eric shouted at me and I looked into his eyes. His eyes took on that intense look that vampires get when they are trying to glamour someone and in my unprotected state, my brain was his in a flash. I could hear his voice in my head as soothing and cool as his presence had been just a moment before.

"Drop the vase," he commanded me. And the vase fell on the floor and shattered into pieces without even a thought from me. Well, like I said, I had never liked it. That was why I had picked it. I knew I had no control.

We stayed crouched there looking at the broken vase, our faces so close that they practically touched. I was breathing hard. It was the only sound in the room. And Eric watched me until my breathing slowed.

"Thank you," he said and stood holding his hand out for me to help me rise.

"Huh?" Great, Sookie. Very articulate.

"Thank you for not making me drag it out of you. Thank you for trusting me. It makes me very happy."

Okay, and now I felt like a huge jerk. Tension and guilt bubbled up inside of me and a few tears leaked out. Eric looked horrified, "Do not cry! Why are you crying? This is very good. There is no reason for crying."

I snorted and wiped the tears away, "Wimp." I continued with a much more on topic question, "You knew?" I phrased it as a question, but I knew that he knew. He couldn't lie to me.

He shrugged wiping away the last tear with his thumb, "I knew I didn't throw him through the doors of the bar even if I might have wanted to."

Well that made sense, but I suspected that he knew before that. He'd been hovering a lot lately. Had he known as soon as I had? Had he felt the power awaken inside me? Had I felt different to him? I guess these were all the things we needed to talk about.

"Tell me," he said. "What made you so angry that you threw him so far? Surely, you did not think you were in danger with both myself and Pam…and even Bill, right there."

Well that was of course, the issue with this power. "No, I didn't think I was in danger. I just meant to move him back slightly or hold him where he was, but I got angry and my control..." I gestured to the vase.

Eric looked at me with interest, "And what made you so angry?"

I blushed and mumbled something unintelligible.

"What was that lover?"

I felt my blush deepen, but I looked him in the eye, "The thing about the old guy and the Vegas bimbo made me mad. I don't like people thinking of me like a fang banger and I don't like them thinking I'm using you."

His eyebrows shot up into his hair, "You were defending my honor."

I glared at him, but didn't say anything. Said like that it sounded sort of stupid. Eric didn't need anyone to defend him against someone calling him bad names. I thought he was laughing at me, which is why I was really surprised when I looked up and he was hovering over me with a ferocious look in his eye.

"I will never give you up," he growled and kissed me so fiercely I thought my knees might give out. And then the vampire in him kind of faded away and he became more my Eric, "You have brought so much joy to my existence. I never realized how bland it was before you."

Well, that was a pretty nice compliment. It would have been nice if I'd just let it stand, but I still felt embarrassed being complimented, "So I'm the most fun you've had in centuries, huh?"

He grinned, "Oh much longer than that. You might be the most fun I've had all millennium."

He glanced at the clock again. "I have to go. We have much to discuss. Be at the bar by 8:30."

I cleared my throat loudly and significantly and he looked back at me half way out the door already, "Be at the bar by 8:30, please."

I nodded and called after him, "Have a good day at work, honey."

I heard him chuckle on his way down the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

I was dressed and sitting on the sofa reading when I heard the door open again. Well, I wasn't really reading, but I had a book in my lap. Really I was thinking about this whole new power thing.

It had kind of sprung up on me one day. I'd been at work. Agent Weiss had been interrogating a member of the Fellowship of the Sun on the increase in hate crimes against Weres. I'd been watching the burly, uneducated man and thinking about hate. How we're raised like that – to fear the different. How bitterly wrong it is. How limiting to teach your children such a thing. And I just started to feel angry.

I was writing down some of his thoughts. They weren't any nastier than anything I'd heard about myself, but somehow it was just worse that day, maybe I'd just been in a bad mood from the start. And I thought about how it was people like this, poison to our world, and if anyone ought to be staked it ought to be someone who had a mind as vile as this and my pencil just flew out of my hand and stuck in the wall.

At first, I thought it was just one of those weird things. Like I'd been so lost in thought that my pencil just flew out of my hand or I threw it without thinking about it, stuff like that happens, right? But the more I thought about it, looking at the pencil sticking out of the wall, the more I got the feeling that maybe I'd stuck it there with the force of my thoughts. So I'd started thinking about it coming back to me. At first nothing happened, but then the pencil had started to move dislodging itself from the wall. I'd let out a little shriek and jumped out of my chair trying to run away from the pencil, which of course wasn't the problem. I was the problem. I was what I was afraid of and it's real hard to run away from yourself. Believe me. I've tried before with no success.

After that, I'd tried every once in awhile to move something. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. The Fellowship, like I said, has really been kicking it up with the hate crimes, so I've been traveling some for work. It hadn't been part of our original agreement with the FBI and Eric hated it. He didn't think it was safe for me. I knew he was right. I really shouldn't be leaving the area, especially now. But, the travel did mean I could test the new ability trying to figure it out. Some might say I was hiding it and I couldn't really say they would be lying, but it wasn't how I thought of it. I hadn't meant to go public with it in the bar the other night – and by public I mean, Eric. Obviously, I had no plans to let the general public know diddlysquat.

I hadn't gotten it figured out when I let the cat out of the bag. Sometimes I'd float pillows around my hotel room when I was traveling. Sometimes I'd try moving my suitcase. Sometimes I'd go for precision and try to pick one playing card out of a deck or something, which had never worked. Every time I tried that I ended up playing fifty-two pick up.

But that vampire in the bar just made me so mad. I had had enough of being threatened. I wasn't going to belong to anyone that I didn't want to belong to and that was just the end of it. I'd do what I needed to, but no one else was going to touch me without serious consequences. And that's just how it was.

Sure, that guy didn't know that. He didn't know my history, but well, fuck him and I don't say that lightly. You don't put your hands on a lady unless she asks you to. He had it coming.

The door to the garage closed and I heard Pam moving around in the kitchen. Only Pam and Eric had the code to get in here, plus, I lived here now, so they were the only two that had ever been invited in. I didn't know if I'd ever feel comfortable inviting anyone else in. I knew Eric wouldn't care if I never did.

You might wonder if it bothered me, Pam walking in and out of my house without even knocking, and it did. But she's been with Eric a lot longer than I have and it had been pretty clear to me that she had no intention of starting to knock just because I lived with him now. I mentioned it to Eric and he looked at me like I'd grown an extra head. Well, I guess I couldn't blame him, I'm pretty certain that when he was human everyone lived in one big house, so it wasn't like he cared if his one relation walked in and out of his home. He wasn't big on privacy. Secrets, yes. Security, big thumbs up to that one. Privacy, he seemed to be able to take it or leave it.

"You could at least call out Pam," I yelled from my spot on the family room sofa.

Pam continued moving around the kitchen, from the clinking I would say she was loading True Bloods into the fridge, "There is no need to shout Sookie I am right here."

She had to be a good forty feet away.

She finished her task and came to sit on the other side of the sofa. She flopped down in the most un-Pam way I had ever seen. "You look tired Pam." In fact, I had never seen her looking anything other than perfect and it worried me.

She glared at me. "Of course I am tired," she snapped back. "Why must you travel for work so often? It is very exhausting for me."

I smirked at that. It just warmed my heart to know that Pam only cared about my job in relation to how it affected her. "Gee, Pam, so nice of you to support my career this way."

She gave me a look that I have to say was pretty freaking scary.

"I support your career," she hissed. "I have told Eric many times that it is very important not only for you to have a job, but even for you to have this job. But you must understand what sacrifices I have to make for you to keep it. When you are gone he is impossible. Obviously, he worries about you terribly, but since he cannot express this, he buries himself in work to suppress his fears, which of course, he will not admit to having. And then all of that negative emotion is redirected at me while he works me into the ground. It is all very trying. And it drastically cuts in to my leisure time."

Well, that was a nice Dear Abby-style summary of the situation, I wondered if she'd written in for advice.

"Okay, back up and explain a couple of those things to me. Important for me to have this job?"

Pam shrugged and wandered into the kitchen to get herself a TrueBlood and then I felt guilty for not offering her one, although since she'd brought them herself it was a little strange in terms of the hospitality required. She sank back down on the sofa, "You like to work. It is important to you and makes you feel good about yourself. If you were just sitting around waiting for Eric to rise so he could have sex with you, he would enjoy the sex less because you would enjoy it less. Since you would not feel good about yourself the way working obviously makes you feel." She paused to see if I understood, I did, but to say that I was flabbergasted wouldn't have been too far off. Except that it got worse, I should have waited to be flabbergasted.

"This job is important because it helps you to understand that humans and vampires are not as far apart as you think. Obviously, we are physically superior, but you seem to think that vampires all think in an evil way, and undoubtedly some do. But there are plenty of humans out there that think in evil ways, just as there are plenty of vampires that do not. Different, but not necessarily evil. It is important for you to realize this, so you are more accepting of the idea of being changed." Well, alrighty. I should have known it would lead back to me being turned. With Pam everything did these days, it was like I was her own personal crusade.

"And the leisure time?" I managed to croak out.

She smiled that was a bad sign. She was about to say something she knew I wouldn't like, "He is always leaving early to come home and have sex with you. It is wonderful for me. I have never had so much freedom to run the bar as I see fit. He takes care of his Sheriff duties, but the bar is almost entirely mine. Except of course when you are away. Without you to have sex with he does not leave until the dawn. And he is in a foul mood too. It is very irritating."

"Pam, that's none of your business!" I snapped.

She chuckled, "How is it not my business? It is very much my business if I am left to deal with it when you are away. And is that not what you are doing when he comes home? I doubt you are play checkers. If you are you should stop, although I'm certain Eric is an excellent checker player, his best talents lie elsewhere."

I gave her a fake smile and snapped, "Thanks Pam for that super sensitive analysis."

She shrugged, "Vampires are generally not known for their sensitivity Sookie."

I didn't really have anything to say to that so I changed the subject. "Look, I have something to tell you and I want your help with something."

She looked interested and leaned toward me. I looked at her for a moment and then told her everything that happened early today. She listened silently as I'd known she would and then sat thoughtfully for several moments.

"You must tell Eric to order me never to reveal this information even if threatened with my own death. He must order me as my maker."

I stared at her shocked and then stammered, "Pam, I trust you."

She was shaking her head, "You must protect yourself Sookie. I would never betray you willingly, but it would be best if I could not."

I nodded feeling slightly stunned. And then said slowly, "I was going to ask you to come with me somewhere to try to find out more, but maybe you don't want to."

Pam looked pleased by my vague invite, "Of course, I will come with you. It is my duty, but I would do it willingly. Why do you wish me and not Eric?"

I blushed. My idea, Eric wasn't going to like it and I didn't think it was going to work if he was there. "It's not Eric's kind of place. He'd stand out."

Pam smirked, "Eric stands out many places." No kidding.

"Do you want to come or not?" I snapped losing patience with the discussion. Seriously, sometimes I thought Eric's quick-flash temper was wearing off on me.

"Of course," Pam replied blandly. Obviously, the snappy temper didn't faze her. She'd been on its receiving end for several hundred years and shrugged it off without a second thought.

"Okay then. I'm going to ask Amelia to join us. Let me just call her and then we'll go."

"Excellent," Pam said standing up and smoothing her pearl gray pants. She wasn't really dressed for the venue I had in mind in dressy pants and a navy blue silk blouse, but I was certain it wouldn't bother her.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

And this was the telling moment, would she still come with me when I told her. "I want to go talk to my cousin Claude. I think he might know something about what's happening to me."

She raised her pale eyebrows, "You want me to take you to a strip club? Eric's not going to like that."

I shifted my eyes away and tried to sound light and unconcerned. I knew he wasn't going to like it, but I couldn't do much else. I didn't have a phone number for Claude and I knew that he had moved, but he hadn't sold the club and I'd seen that he was performing tonight. "I don't think he'll mind."

Pam snorted, a very un-Pam sound. "Well, good then. I'll let you tell him when I take you to Fangtasia later."

Amelia, Pam and I walked in to Claude's club and tried to blend in with the screaming mobs of women. I'm sure we blended in just fine – Pam looked like she'd come from work and Amelia and I both looked like stay at home moms in our jeans and shirts – but I had never felt so self-conscious in my life. The dance beat was thumping and there were several men dancing on stage. They seemed to just be the opening act, gyrating in g-strings to a funky latin rhythm. I averted my eyes from the stage and looked for a table. I pointed to one and started leading Amelia and Pam toward it. I glanced at Pam, who was watching the men with a pleased look on her face and then I noticed that she was eyeing the men as if they were dinner and hissed, "Fangs."

She looked at me and gave me a rather toothsome smile before retracting her fangs. "Sookie, you are a stick in the mud! That one on the left smells tasty."

I glared at her, "We're not here for dinner Pam. We're here for information."

Amelia laughed at me and flagged down the waitress. She and I nursed our beers as Pam drank a blood and we waited for Claude.

"I have to say Sookie, this is a lot more fun than the last time you asked me to gather information for you," Amelia giggled waving a single at a buff blonde that sort of reminded me of Eric. Yeah, I guess this was better than a supernatural support group. But then really, what wouldn't have been? I looked at the blonde a little more carefully and kind of drifted off into my own little fantasy that involved Eric and stripping, and then I had Pam made "tsking" sounds with her tongue. She and Amelia were really having way too much fun.

The music ended and the male cabaret disappeared off the stage. The regulars began to call out as the music changed. A spotlight went on and there was my cousin dressed as a cowboy. It looked like his second romance novel cover. Now Pam's fangs were really out as she and Amelia whooped and hollered with the rest of them. I slunk back in my chair a little bit, but as Claude looked up his eyes meet mine in the darkened club and not in a sexy come hither way, more like an oh shit way. He frowned for a second and then continued with his dance as if I wasn't there. But I heard him almost sighing into my brain, "Come on back when I'm done."

And then a moment later he intruded into my head again, "There was no need to bring a vampire with you."

Well, that was his opinion. I didn't plan on spending time with any of my fairy relatives without at least one person that I was certain was on my side. Maybe it should have given me pause that of the maybe four people I was certain I could count on (and that did not include Claude), two of them were vampires, but it didn't - not for one second.

I glanced over at Pam, who was watching Claude dispassionately. I watched her watching him with an interest that clearly had nothing to do with his dancing then she turned to me and looked at me just as coolly, "It would be safest if I drained him after you speak to him."

I must have looked as stunned as I felt because she looked at me and rolled her eyes, "I don't suppose you are going to allow me to do that."

"I don't suppose I am," I confirmed in what I hoped was a firm voice. It sounded pretty steady to me. Confidence can carry you through a lot of sticky situations, Eric had taught me that. Or at least the appearance of confidence. I did have to take a moment to reflect that I wasn't bothered by what she said, simply firm in my rejection of it. In truth, I was touched that she cared enough to want to drain him to protect me.

I put my hand on Pam's and she stared at it clearly uncertain as to what I was doing, "Pam, you're pretty much the best sister-in-law ever."

Her expression changed from uncertain to mildly pleased. She even smiled and patted my hand, "Technically, I would be more like a step-daughter than a sister-in-law."

I snorted in laughter, "Yeah. But that would be weird and it really wouldn't be okay for me to bring you here."

"Yes," she replied. "And it would be made worse by the fact that I am undoubtedly going to be shouted at for this little interlude later. As if I can control you! Of course, I could if he would let me use more force, but oh no, never with his precious Sookie. As if I would hurt you, I care very deeply for you. But you are very stubborn and personally, I think force would be appropriate."

Having no idea what to say to this speech, I simply stared at her for a moment before turning to talk to Amelia. Pam shrugged and turned her attention back to the stage to wait for Claude to finish.

Claude had changed into sweats by the time Pam and I got through the crowd and backstage. We'd left Amelia at the table, telling her that if we weren't back in twenty minutes to call Eric and anyone else she could think of.

Claude was waiting for us, bottle of water in hand, feet up on a chair in the dressing room. I don't know if Claude had his own, but he was the only one in there now. We hadn't seen each other in a long time.

He'd come by once after…the incident, as I called it in my head…before Eric and I had left town. I had barely been able to look at him then. He'd asked me about Claudine and I'd done what I could to answer his questions. Which had been precious little, thinking back on it, I'd maybe gotten out three or four sentences before dissolving into tears, which had turned into sobs which had led to vomiting. Claude had left after the sobs, but before the vomiting. The next night, Eric had pulled me out of my bedroom window and we'd disappeared into the night. Literally.

Despite the unpleasant memories of the last time I had seen him and some shame in the way I'd behaved (I'm not saying it wasn't understandable, I'm just not proud of it), I looked Claude right in the eye and we stared each other down.

"I knew you'd come eventually," he said breaking the silence. And then he took a big swig of water, clearly uncertain what to say next.

I felt Pam brush my fingertips somewhere behind me and it kind of jerked me back into the moment. I am safe. Pam is here. Claude wasn't going to hurt me and if he tried, Pam is here. Pam is here. I repeated it a few more times just in case I forgot. I had no reason to fear Claude and I knew that, but I didn't think I would ever be comfortable around my fairy kin again.

Gathering all my resolve I spat out, "Do you know what's happening to me?" I can hardly believe he understood me it came out so fast and sounded more like one long word than a sentence.

He looked bored, "You have magic in you. It's always been there. Why do you think Niall was so keen to meet you? Because you were such a brilliant conversationalist?"

Wow, no reason to get snippy! That brought up my temper quite a bit and also made me feel a lot less nervous, I was way too busy feeling angry.

I sputtered a little, but he just kept going. "You've always been so busy hiding your abilities, you never really pushed them. But look at you now. Give the girl some thousand year old vampire blood, dress her up and make her feel like the moon rises by her say so and what do you get…some shiny new powers coming on through."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I snapped at him. I'd heard him just fine, but it sounded to me like he was saying that I was getting more powers because of Eric and that couldn't be what he was saying.

Claude shrugged, "Did you think all that blood exchange was just making your hair shiny? Not with someone like you. Niall didn't contact you until after you and the vampire bonded right? Maybe you were changing back then. That's some old blood; it has to pack quite a kick."

I heard Pam growl slightly. I shook my head in a little bit of disbelief. I guess that's exactly what he was saying? And wait, was he saying that Niall suspected that would happen? Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea, was he saying Eric suspected what would happen? That seemed like the most important thing to me so I just blurted this out, "Are you saying Eric knew this would happen?"

Claude shrugged completely disinterested in what Eric knew or didn't know, "I doubt it. Vampires don't know much about Fey. Even that one as old and hot as he is." I doubted it too, but not for the same reasons he did. And then he gave me an evil little smile, "Although if he wants to learn more, he can call me."

I think the look on my face might have frozen ice. Ignoring his comments I tried to go back to the list of questions I'd formed in my head, "Can I make it stop?"

Claude had turned away, but now he looked back at me with an equally cold look to the one I'd given him earlier, "Little late for regrets isn't it Sookie?"

Well, I suppose it was at that. There were a lot of people already dead for me to be having regrets about my life choices. And sadly, there were still a few more left to die if I was ever going to get a life where I didn't have to look over my shoulder to see who was coming after me. And I had a marriage to protect on top of it all, and although I might consider it secondary to protecting our actual lives, it came a close second so it was definitely a little late to be getting cold feet about any of this.

Claude had nothing else to share with me I realized. He didn't know anything other than that the blood was making me stronger and that paired with my own added confidence was bringing out a whole new side of me. It was just one of those situations in life where you think you know what you are getting and you are wrong…way wrong.

I turned to walk out the door and then I turned back and said, "I'm sorry if I caused you pain by coming here." None of this was really his fault as much as he was a total jackass and I really wanted to blame him.

He looked momentarily surprised and then gave a curt nod. I'd gone about ten feet, with Pam right at my heels, when he called out, "Sookie, I shouldn't have implied that Eric and Niall were purposefully trying to make you more powerful. I don't know that. I don't even really suspect it. I think Niall just valued those with magic and wanted to know you and Eric values…well, I don't know what vampires value, but apparently you and then…oops. You know kind of like humans accidentally make babies. Eric accidentally made you powerful."

I stared at him for a long moment and then I started to laugh. And so did he. And it felt really good. I had tears coming out of my eyes. Pam was staring at me like I'd gone crazy, but she didn't leave my side.

"If you need me," Claude said, but he didn't finish the sentence.

I nodded, "Yeah. Same to you. If you need me…"


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I try to update every week, but this chapter has been giving me trouble. Ultimately, I split it into two so look for another update coming soon. **

**Disclaimer: Don't own anything.**

It was a busy night at Fangtasia as we drove through the parking lot and behind the building to the employee parking. From the line outside the door, it looked like it was still pretty heavily tourist, although that wasn't surprising this early in the evening. As Pam drove us into the employee lot, I felt my heart do a little quick step at the sight of Eric's car and then gave myself a little mental slap, telling myself that I was a married woman not a pre-teen at a Justin Bieber concert. I also noticed that Bill's sensible navy blue sedan was parked in employee parking as well. That was a surprise. Bill had never been big on coming here and now two nights in a row?

There was, however, no parking for Pam. The employee lot was completely full and we were forced to head back out front to park among the "vermin." Pam grumbling the whole way about ripping out the spine of whomever had parked in her spot.

We walked through the lot and past the line and as always, I felt the excitement start to swirl in the pit of my stomach and had to stop myself from breaking out into a run. The blood bond thing just never seemed to wear off. Not that I was really complaining, when we were close like this, there was no other feeling like it in the world.

Inside, I looked around in a way that I personally felt was questioning, but apparently Pam thought it looked a little more frantic than that because she laughed, "Back booth, Sookie. Calm down. It looks like those Downtown Management Committee men are back again though. Katherine Boudreaux joined them. Must be getting serious. He won't be in a very good mood after that."

"Downtown Management Committee?" Were they giving Eric a hard time about a vampire bar in Shreveport? The support wavered according to who was working at the DMC, but at the same time they could never dispute that the bar did really well and was a pretty big tourist draw too.

Pam was flipping through phone messages at the desk and shrugged, "Vampire bars are surprisingly recession proof – or at least they were surprised. They want us to open another across the river."

"And Eric doesn't want to?" I was shocked to hear it.

She gave me a hard look and I got the feeling that his reluctance had something to do with me. "He probably would, but things have been a little tense lately and I don't think he wants to his resource spread thin. Opening a new bar is quite a bit of work. And we don't have a lot of experienced staff right now."

"Possibly if I stopped killing your bar tenders," I joked, but I felt terrible about what I was hearing. The reason things were tense was because of me. Well, really because of Victor, but I was a big part of the reason Victor had such a problem with Eric.

Pam smirked, "That would help, but no use crying over spilt vampire blood." She looked over at the table, "He'll probably be done soon." She knew, of course, that all the dead bartenders weren't the problem, but why talk about it.

I sat down at the bad and Felecia brought me a gin and tonic. I was nursing my drink when a girl, too young to be in the bar, came up to me and cleared her throat. She was a younger version of me in a lot of ways – blonde hair, big blue eyes. She could stand to lose maybe ten pounds, but you know what they say about stones and glass houses. I looked over at her, "You shouldn't be in here. You're underage."

She hopped on the stool next to me and said, "I'm not here to drink."

"Still..." Eric had to be careful, especially now.

"I just wanted to ask a favor and then I'll go and never come back, I promise."

I looked at her and thought about calling Pam to get her the hell out and then wondered when I'd become the kind of person that wouldn't even listen when someone said they needed a favor. Although I didn't even know this girl, so it seemed a little pushy for her to ask a favor.

"I graduated from Bon Temps High last year," she said. "I'm Chrissy Walters."

Oh yeah, I didn't know the family well, but I'd seen them in Merlotte's. I'd seen everybody in Melotte's. I nodded, "How you doin' Chrissy? How are your folks? Now, I know you need to get out of here. They wouldn't want you in a vampire bar."

Damn right they wouldn't. Chrissy's mama had barely ever talked to me although she and Jason had dated in high school back when he was All-State. They had different goals – Chrissy's mama wanted to get married and Jason wanted to get laid and although probably they could have met in the middle somewhere, Jason, although plenty stupid, is not stupid enough to let a girl trap him into marriage. Or at least he wasn't until Crystal. Anyway, Chrissy's mama had gone off to LSU, joined a sorority, gotten married and dragged her husband back to Bon Temps to restore a lovely antebellum home, and of course, show off to all her other high school friends.

"They're fine," she waved the question away as unimportant. "I'm at LSU now, just like them and I'm pledging my mama's sorority…" She trailed off and I could feel the embarrassment radiating from her brain and decided to take a peak. She was pledging because her mother was making a big deal out of it. She didn't really want to and got the sense that the other girls didn't like her that much. She'd get in, she was legacy after all, but she didn't want to be that girl, who got in just because. Well, I got that.

But then she held up the Fangtasia calendar and said, "See they have a scavenger hunt every year for the pledges and there's one item that nobody has ever gotten."

I looked at her coldly, "You better be about to tell me you just need an autograph and nothing more."

I eyed the calendar and Chrissy with increasing distaste. I had not been happy about the idea of Eric posing for this year's calendar. He had laughed at my jealous streak and told me it was nothing. What did it matter if hoards of people saw him naked? I couldn't say that I had been raised with the same attitudes about nudity and I thought it did matter. He pointed out that I had enjoyed the pictures before we were married and I couldn't really argue with that. I had enjoyed them quite a bit, but we hadn't been married. I'm not saying that I had a good argument I'm just saying I wasn't thrilled about the calendar and felt kind of irritated that an eighteen year old girl had purchased my husband's naked image for 19.99 and was going to take it back to her sorority house to show her friends. And when you said it like that, I didn't think it sounded so crazy, me being irritated I mean.

"Of course," Chrissy assured me quickly. "Just an autograph." I popped into her head to make certain that there wasn't anything more sinister. There wasn't. I chose not to reflect on my complete lack of trust for people nowadays.

"Give me the calendar," I sighed and held out my hand. As I stomped across the floor I felt like shoving a few of the vermin myself. Eric had his eyebrow raised in a question by the time I got there. He could feel my jealousy, my possession, all mixed together with a large amount of irritation with myself for being a pushover.

He slid his arm around my waist and pulled me up against him. The contact soothed me, a little. Katherine gave us an affectionate smile. I liked her.

'Gentleman, have you met my wife Sookie?" he asked the table and we all made our polite introductions.

Once introductions were over, the heavy set guy, Paul, pretty much barked at me, "Cupcake, we're in a meeting so if you don't mind…"

I watched Eric's face go from amused question to really pissed-off frown in an instant. The tall thin guy, Lawrence, stammered that it was no problem at all. Lawrence was the guy in charge so Paul shut up.

I glared at Eric for no good reason and slapped the calendar on the table, "Sorry to interrupt and everything, but could you sign this?" And I pushed the calendar toward him with my finger, touching it as little as possible.

He looked amused again, "Lover you don't need a picture. I would be happy to sign the original for you. Or better yet, allow you to sign it."

And dirty thoughts flashed at me from the human side of the table. Thanks Eric, really.

"It's for a good cause or at least sort of," I sighed. "It's a long story, just…please?"

He shrugged, picked up a pen, flipped open to his page and splashed a very flashy signature across a key location. "Anything for you my love."

Now it was my turn for the raised eyebrows as I regarded the signature, "Nice."

He grinned like an unrepentant five-year old, "I aim to please."

I snorted and felt a flood of love wash over me. As much as he drove me crazy, I truly loved him.

"Thank you." And I leaned down to give him a soft kiss on the cheek, which earned me a stunned look from the members of the Downtown Management Committee and a slightly more exciting look from my husband. I stood up and was about to walk away when I first heard it and turned back. I looked at Paul and then at Lawrence. "Why the hell are you bringing a member of the Fellowship into my husband's bar?"

Eric was out of his seat faster than I could track placing himself in between me and Paul. He glared at Lawrence and at Paul too I suppose, although I could tell by his stance only Lawrence still had a chance at redemption. "What is the meaning of this?"

Poor Lawrence. He stammered and shrugged. He was too afraid to form a coherent thought. Paul's thoughts on the other hand were just down right ugly. I like to think I'm thick-skinned, but I had a good mind to wash his mouth out with soap for some of the things he was thinking. Still, no reason to let poor scared Lawrence go down with him.

I put a soothing hand on Eric's shoulder and he grunted at me to let me know I had his attention, but he did not turn his eyes away from the threat. "Lawrence, he doesn't know anything. He just wants to bring more revenue into the city. It's just Paul."

Lawrence was out of the booth now too; wanting to get as far away from Paul and his fate as possible. Paul's thoughts were whirling through my head. His brother owned a restaurant that had closed last year and he and his kids were really struggling. And the city wanted this damn vampire open another bar. Like this guy needed money with his packed bar and his ego. It had made him sick. He went to the Fellowship meetings and he'd heard the rumors about things that happened, but he'd never been any part of it. But when he heard about the plans for Fangtasia II, he'd gone to them.

"There's a plan," I said to Eric. "He's supposed to report on everything and the Fellowship will set up protests at key points, cause delays, minor vandalism anything that delays the opening and costs money and if all that fails they'll start a fire."

Eric cursed in several different languages and reached over and grabbed Paul out of the booth. I noticed Pam appeared at my shoulder and began speaking to Eric in a language I didn't know. I stepped into his line of sight and said soothingly, "Wouldn't it be better to talk about this in your office?"  
Katherine stood next to me, "What an excellent suggestion Sookie. Gentlemen." She gestured toward Eric's office and the group disappeared down the hallway. With the exception of Eric who stayed looking at me. "You okay?" I asked. To say he seemed on edge would be a massive understatement.

"Victor stopped by earlier this evening." Well, that explained a lot as far as his ultra-tense mood went. "He stayed for several drinks and was feeling very chatty." That, on the other hand, was just weird.

"What did he want to talk about?"

"He believes you have a secret daytime life." Huh, well that wasn't good.

"That's crazy! I don't have any secrets from you. You know about the expanded telepathy thing. You know about the other thing from this evening that we aren't going to talk about here. You know about…oh."

Eric raised his eyebrows slowly, "Yes, I was concerned there might be an oh."

I felt myself flush. It hadn't been an intentional lie just an omission that I sort of forgot about. It was something I had withheld a long time ago and now, if I was telling him now I would have told him, but we hadn't talked about this particular thing in ages so it hadn't come up. "We should talk about it at home," I ventured.

He gave me a long hard look. The look made me feel like an ass. He was clearly angry, but he was something else too, he was hurt. Geez, you have to be a pretty big jerk to hurt the feelings of a Viking vampire. I didn't like to think of myself as the kind of person that might be able to do that. Of course, I guess it didn't matter how tough you were, the person you loved the most was going to be able to hurt you – no matter what you'd seen in your life or unlife – and for Eric that person was me.

He blew air out through his nose and looked at me for a moment as if he would like to say more. "I need to go deal with this," he stated looking down the hallway toward his office, but he didn't move. In fact, he looked like he had absolutely no interest in walking down that hallway. He looked like he wanted to get the hell out of here. I knew how he felt. He looked back at me, "Did I make a mistake running away with you? Sometimes I think it made you feel too safe. We must put our lives in each others hands Sookie, that is what marriage is."

Although I didn't love being lectured like I was a schoolgirl, I couldn't say he was wrong. I opened my mouth to try out a couple of snappy retorts about the lecturing tone, but I couldn't come up with anything so I just nodded and mumbled something about being sorry.

Eric leaned down and kissed the top of my ear whispering, "Do not be sorry. Be my wife."

He was gone back to his office just like that and I was left to mope at the bar. I'd been there a few minutes when Bill came to sit beside me. "Eric sent me out to keep you company," he sounded apologetic as he took the stool next to mine.  
"Fantastic," I snapped back at him, not that any of this was his fault. I was just having kind of a crappy night. "I can't even be trusted to sit by myself in a bar apparently."

Bill ordered a blood and smiled. "Would you like to talk about it?"

I laughed and it wasn't a very nice sound, "You want to talk about my relationship with Eric?"

Bill's face remained passive, "If that is what you would like to discuss."

I eyed him critically trying to decide if I wanted to talk about this with Bill. Were we friends like that? I didn't have a lot of friends to know for certain, but I had to imagine that you only shared the details of your married life with people you truly trusted. I didn't think Bill fell into that camp. We were friends, but there had been too many untrustworthy moments for me to want to discuss the most intimate relationship in my life with Bill, especially if you considered that Bill hated Eric, even if he was willing to follow him.

"I don't, but thanks for asking." I looked down and realized I was still holding the damn calendar. Bill followed my gaze and eased it out of my hand, "Let me take care of that for you. It was the anxious looking blonde that needed it."

I nodded and for the first time in a long time, I felt genuinely grateful for Bill's presence.


	5. Chapter 5

I sat with Bill talking about nothing, the way you do in a bar. He told me about updates he was making to his database. I told him about my job. I thought he looked disinterested when we talked about my job. It's not that Bill was a bad guy, he wasn't, he was just from a different era. It was weird though that I never felt that way about Eric. Maybe as Bill got older he'd get with the times more, who knew?

Maybe it was the boredom that made me push my way into Bill's head or maybe it was just to see if I could do it. And I could, it was surprisingly easy. I'd never actively tried to get into a vampire's head before, it had always just happened. Probably, it was easier because he was thinking about me. Right at this exact second he was thinking about my breasts, but that wasn't really the main tenor of his thoughts. He was thinking about how insulting it was that Eric had sent him out here to sit with me. Was Eric not threatened by him at all? It was such a strong thought that I almost answered him – not only was Eric not threatened; he had no reason to be. Bill also sensed that there was something going on with me that he didn't fully understand. That thought didn't exactly warm my heart, if Bill suspected there was something different about me others probably did too.

His thoughts shifted to the fact that he would have been a good husband to me. I had some issue with that thought, given the whole Jackson situation I'm not sure he would have been, but it didn't really matter, he hadn't asked me and I think that worked out in my favor. But I didn't want to be unfair, I think he would have really tried if I had been able to see past Jackson…but things had happened. I pulled myself out of his head; there wasn't really anything in there that I needed to see so at this point I was just being nosy and I'd always tried to avoid that.

I was searching for another topic; wondering if he'd be angry if I asked if he was seeing anyone when I felt a wave of contentment flood over me and looked up to see Eric striding toward me. I felt my heart do a little fluttery thing in my chest.

He came to stand behind me and I leaned back into his chest. "All taken care of?" I asked tipping my head up to see him.

He smiled down at me and dropped a light kiss on my lips, "We're set. Paul's thinking has been re-adjusted and maybe some key dates and information have been altered. Lawrence just thinks everything went smoothly. Katherine drove them home."

He looked over at Bill and nodded, "Thank you for staying with Sookie."

Bill looked a little taken aback at Eric's thanks and I was a little surprised myself. Eric wove his fingers through mine and pulled me off the stool, "We are going home."

It sounded promising, but there was something in his eyes that made me a little uncomfortable.

We drove home in a silence that seemed full of the unsaid and I couldn't help but notice that he did not let go of my hand like he wanted to keep touching me. There was a lot going on with us right now and the weight of it was sometimes overwhelming. In my head, it just confirmed to me that he was the one I wanted, all the time. When I was happy, stressed, afraid, overwhelmed, Eric was my person to share it with, the one I wanted to tell about my day or lean against at night when I didn't want to talk about it. I hoped I was the same kind of balm for him.

We pulled into the garage and he was out of the car and around to my side before I even registered that he'd let go of my hand. I swung my legs out of the car and was surprised to find him on his knees right in front of me. My nose practically smacked into his trying to exit the car. "What's up with you?"

His arm circled my hips and he pulled me forward, pressing me against him…okay…

"You belong to me," he stated emphatically. Sure, I did. How was that more of an issue tonight than the last four years? "You are my woman. My wife," he growled at me.

"Is this about what Victor said? What exactly got under your skin so much?" I was really just blathering at this point because my brain, and other parts of me, were completely stuck on the whole mine thing. Whenever he said it my modern day mind rebelled at the idea of being his, but there was always a part of me that kind of wanted him to say it again and then again and again, maybe growl it, that part, which was considerably further south of my brain, was currently telling the modern part to shut the hell up.

I never got an answer about whether or not this was Victor-driven passion or maybe it was the Fellowship of the Sun threat, whatever it was, Eric was pretty much on fire to prove to me or to himself that no one was taking me from him. And as he kissed me, I have to say that if anyone had tried to take me from him at that moment, I would have fought them tooth and nail to stay right where I was, trapped between his legs with his lips devouring mine and his hands everywhere.

"Eric," I hissed as his mouth traveled down my neck and his hands pulled at my shirt. His eyes rose to meet mine and the look on his face tore at me, all of me, my heart, my head, my core. His beauty astounded me while his obvious need overwhelmed me. Who was I for this powerful, beautiful man to need me?

I was all set for him to throw me down on the garage floor and take me with some sort of crazed battle cry, but it was the garage, and although I don't think of myself as girly that struck me as both dirty and uncomfortable.

"We're in the garage," I whispered into his ear and the next thing I knew, we weren't. We were on the kitchen floor. It wasn't much more comfortable than the garage, but I didn't care as his tongue circled my nipple, which was also when I noticed that my bra seemed to have gone the way of the dodo. He was grinding against me in a way that let me know that this particular episode was not about love or even the joy of sex, because Eric really did take a great deal of joy in sex; this was something a lot more basic. He needed to possess me and I think maybe I needed him to do that too.

His insecurity was scaring the heck out of me. He was worried about something and it was really driving home to me how much the security he provided meant to me. Not just physical security either, he had changed me. When I was with him, I felt beyond safe or beyond physically safe. He alone could hurt me and he never, ever would just as I would never hurt him. But clearly, he needed me to reaffirm that right now.

And so I whispered, "I need you, please." He was ripping clothing away before I finished my sentence. When he entered me, it was not tender, but I don't think anything had ever felt so good. The pace was frantic and as he bit me, my world exploded and I bit him back, hard, hard enough to draw blood without any help from him.

We lay there on the floor, panting. Well, I was panting and Eric looked like he would be if he needed to. He shifted his weight slightly so he was still mostly on top of me, but now most of his weight was on his side, "I have no words to express what you mean to me."

I was more than a little startled; Eric always had the words – sometimes his words warmed me or scared the heck out of me – but rarely had I seen him unable to express himself. "When I look at you, it is how I remember feeling when I would turn my face to the sun on a summer day. As though things are right and the world is at peace. Perhaps that feeling has taken on greater meaning to me as the sun has not been a part of my world for a very long time."

I brushed a stray hair from his face, "No, that's a pretty great feeling. And a really nice compliment."

He kissed my ear, "It is not a compliment Sookie, simply what I feel."

This time I just nodded and kissed him slowly in return, "I don't have the words either. There's no way to explain how I feel about you. You have my heart. You are my heart. I don't know why this secret day time thing of Victor's bothered you so much, but I figure you're getting there." He picked me up and carried me into the family room to lie on the sofa, wrapping a blanket around us although it wasn't especially cold and we cuddled together on the couch.

"We'll talk about Victor in a moment. I know that what he said is not...but it..." He did not continue, but changed his tone to be light almost teasing, "Tell me something," he said. "Something about you that no one else knows."

I thought for a moment. I had to struggle to come up with something he didn't already know. Eric and I had spent three years just the two of us. I'd told him everything from childhood memories to the awkward teen years to the loneliness I'd felt the only mind-reading human out there. He knew me inside and out. I hit on a memory that made me smile and I figured would make him laugh, "When I was a kid, I used to go out into Gran's woods and pretend that I was a fairy princess."

He raised an amused eyebrow. "Kind of funny now huh," I laughed. He chuckled with me and gave me another long sensuous kiss.

"Now I will tell you something no one else knows," he said. "I wish I could give you a child."

Wait, did the world just stop rotating on its axis…oh no, I guess it just felt that way for a moment. He couldn't have surprised me more if he had punched me in the stomach – it sort of felt like he had. I felt the tears pool in my eyes, but I wouldn't hurt him further by letting them spill.

I knew that I wanted a child, but I had never given much thought to whether or not Eric would want one too. Looking back on it that was pretty hard-hearted of me, not even considering that he would grieve our lack of offspring. We never talked about it. Obviously, we weren't having children. Not only could we not have them, but also there were several groups that wanted us dead. I didn't think a child belonged in our lives; it would have been irresponsible in the extreme.

"I know people do not think like this anymore, but I can not help but feel that it is my job to give you a child. I am failing you and I am sorry."

I snuggled into him and tried to come up with a response that was everything I needed it to be – understanding, loving and let him know how deeply touched I was that he even felt like that at all. "You never fail me. I don't think it would be a good idea for me…even if...our lives aren't really conducive to child rearing. But you know, if we weren't…well, you know I'd want that too. But you never fail me. Don't ever say that."

I know I sounded unbearably sad, but this was something I had thought on for awhile after Eric and I ran off. Actually, it was something I'd thought a lot on before I even knew Eric. Of course, I'd been raised with the idea of having a child, but could I risk passing on this miserable gift. I'd never really been able to picture it. And now with all the Supernaturals out there in the world, it would just never work.

He looked down at me and smiled, a little sadly but still seeming more like the man I was used to, "If I could give you a child, I would keep you both safe. It is my job as your husband. No one would ever hurt either of you. I would not allow it." I felt stirrings deep inside me and tried to reign in the base instinct that made me want to grab him and throw him to the ground and ravage him because to be honest, the image of him protecting me and my child was just about the hottest fantasy I'd ever had. Instead, I ran my fingers lightly over his chest. "I know you would. Look at how many years you've kept me safe and it's been no easy job." I took a breath, it wasn't that I was unhappy to be having this conversation, which probably needed to be discussed eventually anyway, but there was a reason that it had come up tonight and that reason was Victor and that scared the hell out of me, "What is all this about Eric?"

He stared up at the ceiling and exhaled loudly through his nose, "Victor says you go to see a child. There is a man too…"

I sat up and stared at him. "Are you freaking kidding me? It's Hunter, Eric. Just Hunter. It's not like I've been hiding some secret love child. Please tell me you didn't think that." And yet again, I had the strongest desire to drive a stake right through Victor's heart. Apparently, since trying to kill us hadn't worked out, we were on to mind games. Fabulous. If possible, I hated Victor more than ever before.

Eric looked back at me stroking my back lightly, "No, I did not think that. I suspected that it was Hunter, although Victor claims that he only heard of your being seen with a man and a child by chance, and thought I should know. But it doesn't ring true. Obviously, he's having you watched during the day, but I feel as if there is something else I am missing."

And something I was missing too. I lay my head on his chest, thinking hard about Victor's motives here. I could feel Eric's tension beneath me. "Sookie, why would Victor tell me this? He certainly could have found out that Hunter is your cousin. To imply that you are unfaithful, when it can so easily be proven false – it would have very great ramifications. I could challenge him…"

I shrugged, but tucked the information about the challenge away for future reference.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks, damn it, I should have told him hours ago – the second it hit me in the bar what the one thing I'd never told him was. I was just so certain that nobody knew or no vampires knew. I mean they'd all known Hadley and never thought to check out her offspring – obviously, she'd kept him well hidden. I'd told Eric about Hunter's existence ages ago, but I hadn't shared the part about being a telepath. At the time that I'd told him about Hunter, we'd only just left Louisiana and he'd been asking me about the people I would miss. I never had any contact with Hunter until we returned so it just never came up. And then once we were back, well, Remy was still okay with me coming to see Hunter, but had made it pretty clear he wanted no part of Eric. It had just…I don't know. It has always been my rule that no one should be dragged into this world unnecessarily, but suddenly I felt like I had made a huge mistake. Holy crap, I can't believe I'd been such an idiot. What if Victor knew? Or maybe just suspected? Maybe he really did think it was my kid and wondered if my gift or maybe he was just fishing to see if he got a reaction...this was so bad.

"Hunter is a telepath," I choked out. I felt like all the air had gone out of my chest. Eric was no longer underneath me. He was gone.

He returned maybe a minute later wearing jeans and carrying an armload of weapons. He looked at me, "You should get dressed. We need to go to your cousin."


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thanks to all of you for the really nice reviews you've given this story so far! I wish I could say I was thanking you with an amazingly long chapter, but its actually sort of a transition chapter. Sorry! The chapter after this promises to be a little more action packed including our first look at Hunter, Remy and the life of an almost ten year old telepath.

Back in the car again. This night was starting to feel never ending. This time we were headed for Red Ditch via Bon Temps. Eric had thrown a number of weapons into a large duffel bag and stuffed it all into the miniscule back seat of his Mercedes. If there was amusement to be had in this situation, it might have been from the fact that the weapons bag included several water guns that contained both water with silver particles and lemon juice. But personally, I didn't find much amusement in the situation.

The plan was to drive to Bon Temps, looking like we were going to be spending the night there and then fly the rest of the way to Red Ditch. It would be close to two in the morning by the time we got all the way to Remy's apartment and only the threat of imminent death would make calling on someone at that hour acceptable. I had wanted to at least call to let him know that we planned on coming, but Eric said, "emphatically no."

He had, however, placed a call to Bill once we were on the road. "I need you to go to Sookie's house and open it up for us, like we're spending the night or even a couple of days. Then take a quick pass through the woods. Text me if you see anything."

There was silence as he listened to Bill, "No. I don't expect that you will find anything. But if you were to, my guess is that it would be vampire."

Then another long pause, "Sookie is having a family issue. No, I don't think its anything you need to be aware of. Why would you need to be aware of my wife's family problems?" And then he hung up.

I didn't have to imagine real hard to figure out how Bill's end of the conversation had gone. My mind was pretty much a blank as I stared out into the passing darkness. Maybe it wasn't so much a blank as just a gigantic swirling mess and every time I tried to pull some sort of thought together I couldn't seem to do it. I think I was just too scared. My mind just kept pulsating with the idea that we were in danger again and I hated it. It was so loud it was drowning out any other thought that might be useful.

"Do you think I should tell Jason?" I didn't know how that thought had managed to claw its way to the surface and out of my mouth; maybe it was the mention of family problems.

Eric did not take his eyes off the road and for a brief second I wondered if he considered the question so unimportant that it didn't deserve an answer. "I think we need to wait and see what we find when we get there." Well that was reasonable.

"What do you think we'll find when we get there?" It came out sort of whispery like I was asking a question I really didn't want to know the answer to, which made sense since that was a good description of how I felt.

This time he looked at me, "Truthfully Sookie, I have no idea. I hope to find them alive, but the possibilities are still numerous. I hope it is not a trap. I hope that the father is not in on it. I hope that Victor is just speculating…" He trailed off as if overwhelmed by the infinite number of bad things we could be walking into. And that scared the hell out of me.

"Trap?" was what I managed to croak out.

He shrugged, "Victor could have told us with the hope of luring us in. Or as I said, the father could have made a deal to protect his son – helping Victor to acquire you or something of that nature." For a second I thought I might have to ask him to pull over so I could throw up. Acquire me. Vampires. And the detached way he kept calling Remy "the father" was creeping me out. Of course to Eric it probably didn't feel seem like he was distancing himself, he'd never met Remy and I didn't talk about him much so it wasn't like he had any sense of who he was other than Hunter's father. I felt his hand cover mine as he said, "Breathe Sookie."

And as though he had commanded it, I took a deep breath and looked at him. "Why are we going? This doesn't seem like you. Rushing into an unknown situation."

He squeezed my hand, "You would never be able to live with yourself if something happened to Hunter and we did not go. When I am resting, it will eat at you and eventually you will go on your own. I can't risk that." He paused for a moment and then continued, "Besides, he is only a child. A child of your family line. I am your husband. This is my duty. Family is part of marriage."

I stared at him and opened and closed my mouth a couple times. I didn't think he was talking about vampire rules now, but something that went a lot further back for him. There were times when it made my head spin to think of how two people as different as Eric and I managed to make it work. Not because he was a vampire and I was a human but because we were raised with entirely different notions about love and marriage. Although oddly, our ideas about family weren't really that different. I gave him a weak smile, "That's right your first two marriages were pretty much all about family weren't they? No, prerequisite love involved. Sorry you got stuck with such bogus in-laws this time."

He grinned appreciatively at my attempt at humor, "To be clear, I've only been married once – well twice now - the other was just someone I planned to marry. As you know, that evening did not work out well for me. Certainly, you cause plenty of trouble, but you have your benefits as well. Although, I am related to a shifter through you, so perhaps I should re-evaluate." He ignored my comment about love. We'd had that discussion before. I supposed he didn't want to re-hash it.

I snorted, "I think we can call it even on that score buddy. I got stuck with Pam."

Now he was laughing, "Again with calling me buddy. I must be in trouble." He turned into my driveway and swore as we hit a bump. I jumped about a mile and peered out my window waiting for vampires to drop out of the sky. Nothing happened. I turned to Eric questioningly and noticed that he was looking about as embarrassed as a vampire can look. "No matter how many times I have this driveway fixed, every spring its nothing but ruts and potholes," he said by way of an explanation. "Perhaps we should consider having it paved?"

I glared at him. It was my best annoyed-wife look and it must have been pretty good because Pam had told me just last month that she thought I had it down pat. And seriously, he wanted to talk about the driveway when we were supposed to be rescuing family members from a very bad vampire.

"Sure," I said sarcastically. "And maybe as we fly over to Red Ditch we should chat about the cable provider. I've been thinking Fios."

He parked and exited the car, "It's your four hours lover." Apparently, the conversation did not seem absurd to him.

Bill appeared out of the darkness causing me to bite back a slightly snippy retort. He nodded his head at Eric, "All appears to be quiet."

Eric nodded back and headed for the house without even a thank you. I guess that was up to me, "Thanks Bill. It was nice of you to come out here."

He shook his head, "It is my job Sookie." He disappeared into the darkness and Eric exited the house broadsword strapped to his back and if I had to guess loaded down with several other weapons as well. He handed me a dagger and a small handgun. I looked at the gun questioningly, "Silver bullets. Don't hesitate."

Right, good advice. Hesitation got you kidnapped. I'd learned that the hard way. "Ready?"

I nodded and we were in the air. As predicted, I found myself knocking on Remy Savoy's bedroom window just shy of two in the morning.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Thanks for all the really wonderful reviews for this story. They've kept me going! I know I'm updating more slowly than I did with Home Sweet Dead, hopefully my real life with calm down soon and I'll have more time. **

We hovered outside of the window and I leaned forward to knock on it. I tried not to look down. I've flown with Eric lots of times and it doesn't frighten me but hovering, leaning forward to reach the window and knock felt awfully precarious, especially because I had to do it several times before Remy actually answered. I could feel the sweat accumulating on my palms and upper lip. Eric sensed my fear and whispered into my ear, "You think I'd drop you now after it has been such a lot of bother to marry you that would be careless and wasteful. I am neither." That was a good point. Eric was never either of those things, but it didn't make me enjoy this process.

Finally, I saw the shade being drawn up slowly and a very surprised looking Remy on the other side. I suppose it was surprising. I might be used to having people, well vampires, continuously popping up outside my bedroom window, but I recognize that is not the norm. Remy stood in his boxers and t-shirt with his face changing from wariness to surprise to anger. He crossed his arms over his chest, "Sookie, what the hell?"

I smiled brightly, "Evening Remy. This is my husband Eric Northman." I could see Eric's reflection smirking at my attempt at polite introductions. Remy didn't seem terribly impressed with my manners his arms stayed folded tight and if possible his mouth turned down even more as he regarded Eric. "Yeah, I know who he is."

And we stared at each other – me smiling like a damn fool and Remy glaring at me with a face that clearly said, why would you bring him here? We stared at each other for a little while before I cracked, "Would you mind inviting us in?"

He chewed on the inside of his cheek clearly thinking it over. Nice, this was the guy that I had helped out on more than one occasion, "I don't hold with vampires Sookie. I told you that when you came back. I want you to see Hunter, it helps him, but I don't want us to have anything to do with that." That. He'd just called my husband "that." I had half a mind to leave him where Victor could find him, but I didn't think it would serve me well in the long run.

I just smiled brighter and said in the most reasonable tone possible, "And I understand and that Remy and try to respect your choices, I would hope you would do me the same courtesy. There is no reason to be rude." Okay, I was just blathering at this point. I glanced up at Eric who simply looked exasperated and I blurted out, "We think there's a real bad vampire after Hunter and I don't think what you 'hold with' is going to keep vampires away anymore."

I saw Remy go a couple of shades paler. And then his color rose again and he glared at me even more hostile than before, if such a thing was possible, "How does this bad vampire know about Hunter, Sookie?"

I felt the color rise in my cheeks as Eric lied smoothly behind me, "Hadley."

Remy snorted angrily and I saw his shoulders slump, "Come on in. I'm just going to go get some pants."

Eric slid through the window and set me in the floor. And we were left standing in Remy's bedroom looking at each other.

"Do we have a plan?" I whispered.

Eric shrugged looking around the room with great curiosity, studying it like a museum exhibit – American Single Dad, working class variety.

"We'll figure it out," he said absently as he looked at the framed photos of Hunter as a small child.

As if on cue, the door to the hallway opened and Hunter stepped in, "Sookie, I thought I heard you. And I could hear my Dad freaking out from three rooms away."

Well this was the moment of truth. A moment I'd been worrying over even though I hadn't known I was. Eric turned and regarded Hunter, whom he had only ever seen pictures of as a young, sweet-looking boy. Hunter going on ten was not that child anymore. He was a boy with way too much information about the world, in an age when kids already had too much information, Hunter had more, lots more – information way beyond his maturity level, privy to emotions he could not even begin to understand. He was too young and too weak to control his ability, which left him feeling almost constantly alienated both by children and adults. Remy had done his best, but it hadn't been nearly enough for a child with Hunter's unusual gift. Only a person that had the most open of minds would have been able to cope with Hunter and Remy was not a man with an open mind, not that it was his fault since I spend a lot of time in other people's minds I can tell you with certainty that a truly open mind is a rarity. Even people that think of themselves, as liberal thinkers are often not accepting of those that are not, they're own version of narrow mindedness.

But regardless of whether or not Remy could have done better, Hunter was seriously angry. And looked it. The last time I'd seen him, which had just been last week, I'd wondered if drugs were the next stop on the list of behavior that was as sad as it was appalling.

He looked at Eric and I while picking at the black nail polish on his fingers. We stared back at him taking in his vampire band t-shirt and I wondered what his classmates at the Christina school Remy scrimped and saved to send him to thought of Hunter's black nails and the choices in music.

"Hi Hunter," I said. He looked at me with a little bit of relief to see me and a little bit of disdain that I was there at all. He told me the last time I'd seen him that he didn't need me coming by pretending to be a parent. It had sort of been my own fault, my thoughts had drifted while I was visiting – and it had been a particularily trying visit – and I'd wondered if I only came to see him because I'd never had kids of my own. And he picked it right out of my head, word for word and ran with it. I didn't really feel that way, it was just an errant thought. I came because I felt like I had a responsibility to teach him and I loved him, as much as he let me, which was precious little.

I thought he would rehash it for Eric's benefit, but he only gave me the briefest of looks and didn't waste time pulling thoughts out of my head, he was real curious about Eric, who answered Hunter's stare with one of his own.

Eric surprised me by breaking the silence, "That band played at my club." He nodded his head at Hunter's t-shirt. Hunter looked down at the t-shirt and back up at Eric with a look that said pretty clearly that he could care less. In fact, since I could hear his thoughts I was about to tell him to clean up his language, at least in his head. When Eric continued, "They're awful."

Now I turned and glared at Eric who was still looking at Hunter. The child in Hunter showed for a moment as he flushed with embarrassment that something he enjoyed had been ridiculed, but he was gone in a second and Hunter the angry with the way too adult eyes returned. "You know what I usually like best about vampires?" Eric raised an eyebrow, but did not respond. And that was just fine because Hunter wasn't waiting for an answer, "They're silent."

And he headed deeper into the bedroom to bang loudly on the door to the master bathroom. "You can come out," he shouted through the door at Remy. "I don't think he's going to bite you, but thanks for leaving me out here just in case." He paused for a second and then continued, "I think they're here to take me away. I think it's your god damn luck day."

Eric raised his eyebrows at me, "Interesting child lover."

"You can't understand what it's like," I hissed back at Eric. He regarded Hunter again and then turned his eyes back to me, "I am certain it is horrifying until you learn to control it, but like Remy, I am not certain I want it living in my house."

I raised my chin and looked at him with very hard eyes, "It's my house too."

"And that brings us to the reason we're here," he grinned at me although what he was grinning at I couldn't say that I knew. Probably the fact that he knew I'd tell him to stuff it. Sometimes I thought he just picked these little fights to see what I'd say. Seriously, being alive forever can not be that boring that you need to pick a fight with your wife just for fun.

Remy and Hunter had walked down the hallway – well it was just a couple of steps, but still – to face us. I noticed that Remy tried to put his hand on Hunter's shoulder as they went and Hunter pulled away. Everyone seemed to be looking at me so I supposed I was the one in charge of this little mission. I figured Hunter would appreciate the honesty, I know I always do, so I dove in, "Hunter, we want you and your Dad to come stay with us in Shreveport for a bit. We think there may be someone bad coming for you. You can stay with us until we figure out what's going on and then we'll figure it out from there."

Remy was already shaking his head. I could hear the objections flying through his mind – he had work, Hunter had school, I didn't actually know that anything was wrong and he just didn't hold with this vampire nonsense. This guy was starting to bug me. It was getting kind of late and I was feeling sort of cranky. He'd at least been asleep before I knocked on his window.

I held up my hand as if he'd been talking a mile a minute, which for at least two of us in the room he had, "Stop Remy. I know you don't want this, but you don't want Hunter forced to do some vampire's bidding all his life. Who knows how he could end up?"

Eric gave me an amused look and I rolled my eyes at him. I got the irony no need for him to make a thing out of it.

"Whatever, Sookie," Hunter spat out from his slouched position against the wall. "Nothing is going to happen to me."

I walked over and tried to take his hands, but he pushed mine away and seemed to shrink back further into the wall. I took a step back and tried to hide the hurt I felt. "Hunter, I know you think you can protect yourself because you can read thoughts, but you don't know this world. If they want you, they'll find a way to make you do what they want. You can't understand…"

"How does he get you to do what he wants?" Hunter flipped his head toward Eric and glared at me. "Is it sex? That's what my Dad thinks. He thinks it all the time when you visit. You should see the things he thinks. How do you not hear it? He thinks it's sad that you'll serve him just so he'll –"

"Enough!" Eric roared from the corner. I was too aghast to speak and Hunter for the first time appeared to be a little frightened.

Eric strode across the little room and loomed over Hunter in a way that I knew to be terrifying as an adult and could only imagine its effect on a child. "I do not want to know where the rest of that sentence is going," Eric ground out. Although I noticed his fangs were not down. He was really reining it in. It kind of made me want to kiss him. "You will pack. Now. Sookie will spend the rest of the night here – although the thought appalls me – and drive with you in the morning. You will stay with us until I determine the threat has passed." Interesting that Eric thought the threat was going to pass we would have to talk about where he thought the threat was going.

He crouched down and looked at Hunter very closely. Hunter pressed himself into the wall of the bedroom and pushed ineffectively against Eric's shoulders with his fists. Eric ignored him for a few moments and then trapped both of Hunter's hands in one of his own. "And you, angry child, are you as strong as your cousin? Can you be glamoured?"

Hunter looked terrified and I bit out, "Eric." He didn't even look my way.

"Well, little man, shall I try?"

Hunter shook his head hard. It was the most childlike I'd seen him look since my return.

"No," Eric purred.

"No," Hunter whispered back.

Eric stayed crouched on the floor for another moment and then said softly, "Very well then. You will come and stay with Sookie. We will protect you. But you will never speak to my wife like that again – I don't give a damn if she's your cousin." His voice was so soft now, so melodious, I thought he must be glamouring Hunter.

"Eric, you better not be glamouring him." To my ears, my voice sounded afraid. And I think, in that moment, I was a little afraid of Eric. Not so afraid that I wouldn't speak up, but maybe suddenly aware of the potential perils this situation held, not just for Hunter but for us as well.

Eric looked at me and sighed, "Relax Sookie. I am only speaking to him man-to-man."

"He isn't a man. He's a child."

"Well perhaps then I am speaking to him man-to-boy or vampire-to-boy, but regardless I am making it clear how he will conduct himself in my house. And I believe he understands me."

Yeah, he understood that Eric wasn't someone you could play with. Well maybe that was for the best, Hunter probably needed to learn that there were people out there you didn't was to screw with and Eric definitely qualified.

And although his defiant look didn't change Hunter muttered, "I probably shouldn't have said that about what my Dad thought."

It wasn't exactly an apology, but I suppose it was something like an apology. Well, if Eric was having vampire-to-boy talks than maybe I needed to have a telepath-to-telepath chat with Hunter. I squatted on the floor with the two of them, "One thing you should always remember, we're not strong like they are, but we can do things they can't. I can do things that even vampires as old as this one can't do. And he can't do squat about it. If you develop your gift, you'll have some power, which will give you some autonomy. And that's about all you can ask for once people know what you can do. Maybe you're a little young to hear that but your dealing with an adult problem so I don't want to give you childish solutions." Eric looked pleased and proud as he leaned over and brushed the top of my head with his lips. Hunter on the other hand looked thoughtful, although not quite interested.

"Go pack," I stated firmly and he slithered out of the room still looking rebellious but also a little relieved.

Eric and I made our way out to the living room to wait. I leaned my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, which were starting to feel dry and bleary.

"Tired?"

"Very," I sighed. "What am I going to do about them long term? Staying with us, its not going to work forever." This realization had hit me somewhere in Remy's bedroom.

"Do not worry about it tonight," Eric soothed rubbing small circles on the small of my back, which were making my eyelids feel even heavier than they already did.

"And tomorrow," I sighed. "What then?"

"Tomorrow will take care of itself."

I smiled into his shoulder, "That's kind of Zen for a Viking isn't it?"

I could almost feel him smile as he leaned his head against the back of the sofa, "I don't know if you've noticed, but you could raise even a vampire's blood pressure. I am quite…Zen."

He raised his head and leered at me, "It was very exciting to hear you talk about your powers. We'll have to talk about that more later."

I snapped my mental shields up tight to make certain Hunter wasn't getting any inappropriate images. I knew he got them all the time, but not from me. "Is there any hope of making you child appropriate?"

He just raised an eyebrow at me, leading me to more child inappropriate thoughts.

"Eric, is this going to be a disaster? You don't seem to like children that much."

"I don't dislike children," he commented absently. "I liked my children."

I laughed against his chest, "Liking your own children isn't the same as liking children."

He joined my laughter, "What would you like me to say Sookie? I'm going to sell Fangtasia and start teaching kindergarten? I don't think that would be exactly using my strengths."

"And last year you claimed to be so patient," I teased.

"Patient when it benefits me to be so, not because I enjoy it as an exercise or because it comes naturally." Interesting. A very Eric point of view.

"Well, then I supposed I should say thank you for doing this. I think it going to stretch your patience to new boundaries."

He grinned at me and captured my chin between his thumb and forefinger, "Will wonders never cease, a thank you from my Sookie."

I leaned forward and kissed him deeply, "Thank you." I kissed his neck, "Thank you."

Remy cleared his throat loudly from the doorway to Hunter's room. "You should go," he said to Eric.

I looked from Remy to Eric and felt sort of embarrassed by my behavior. I stood and Eric rose as well without protest. "Come straight home," he said to me kissing me softly on the forehead. I nodded. I felt a little sad every time we parted. We walked to the window and Eric stepped out into the night. I leaned out and said softly, "Good night, my lover." He grinned broadly and was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

We drove most of the way to Shreveport in silence. Hunter was plugged into his iPod, which surprised the heck out of me. It wasn't like they were swimming in money so a nine year old with an iPod seemed like a bit much to me. It wasn't my business, but I guess Remy caught my look, "It helps him drown everyone out. I got it second hand and it was the best money I ever spent."

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat feeling guilty. I had plenty of money and I could have helped him, it wasn't like I wouldn't have understood why Hunter needed it, but I knew why he didn't ask too. I wouldn't have asked either.

Beyond the iPod discussion, we didn't talk, which gave me plenty of time to think about what was going on with Victor. I couldn't figure out whether or not he knew about Hunter being telepathic or if he was just stirring the pot as my Gran would have said. With Victor it could be anything – he was sneaky. Sometimes I worried that he might be a little sneakier than Eric. Sneaky made me nervous or at least sneakier than Eric. I've become a survivalist what can I say.

And if I really wanted to get a massive headache – migraine variety – I could contemplate if de Castro knew about what Victor was getting up to out here. Did he know about kidnapping Eric and then me last year? Did he know about Hunter? Was Victor working for de Castro or against him? My theory was he was doing a lot of this behind de Castro's back because I felt like if Victor was working with him, things wouldn't be going so smoothly for Eric.

We had never said a word about last year's kidnapping to any kind of vampire authority though because we just weren't certain if de Castro was involved or not. Although Victor had indicated not, we just couldn't be certain. But even if de Castro had known about that I didn't think he knew about Hunter. Victor didn't seem like the type to pass up the opportunity to have his very own telepath since obviously I had no plans to work for him. Vampires and their crazy politics!

"We're almost there," Remy said breaking me from the mental circles I'd been running in. I looked at him in a way that pretty much said 'duh I know that.' He looked back at me like I was the biggest moron he'd ever had the privilege to know, "I'm going to need directions." Oh right. Wow, I was tired.

I directed him to our new, gated community, which was approximately a mile from Eric's old, gated community, from what I understood I'd never seen his old house and Pam had sold it after we left. We stopped at the security gate and got a visitors sticker for Remy's truck. As we drove deeper into the complex, Remy's frown grew deeper too. We pulled up to the house and Remy let out a low whistle, "Guess living forever really has its perks." I wasn't going to make an issue of it now, but those kinds of comments were going to get annoying fast.

We weren't the only car in the driveway. Alcide Herveaux was sitting in his truck reading a magazine as we pulled in. I hopped out of Remy's truck as soon as we stopped and walked over to Alcide, who was already on his way over to greet me. He smiled and gave me a kiss on the cheek, "Sookie you look fantastic. I swear you get prettier every time I see you." And then he paused wondering if that was an awkward thing to say. I let it go. I'd chalk it up to my newfound happiness as opposed to quantities of ancient vampire blood.

"Alcide, it's real good to see you, but what are you doing here? Eric won't be up for hours." Alcide and Eric had developed quite a nice working relationship in the year since our return. I suppose now that there was no question over who was with whom they could enjoy each other's proficiency at their jobs.

"He called me right before dawn. He wants some Weres to watch the house during the day. Something about guests." He looked at Remy and Hunter thinking that they couldn't possibly be whom Eric was talking about. "Anyway, I wanted to ask you about preferences and all that –"

I was about to invite him in for a cup of coffee when Hunter piped up, "Your brain is weird."

Alcide looked at Hunter and then at me, understanding what all the fuss was about, "I guess these are the people Eric was talking about. So what you're looking for is discreet. Really discreet."

Now we were both looking at Hunter, "That about covers it. Why don't you come in and I'll put on some coffee. I just want to show them to the pool house and let them put their stuff down." I'd decided on the ride over that Eric would probably be happier if they were with us but sort of separate too. I'd actually furnished the pool house as kind of guesthouse more with Jason or Amelia and Sam in mind, but it worked out great for this too.

Alcide hesitated for a second, "I don't want to make you uncomfortable Sookie. I know you don't really let anyone inside especially when Eric's sleeping and all."

The truth was I never let anyone inside, but eventually I was going to need to start. Eric had a new day guy that didn't think much of never being allowed at the house. And we had this big house; it would be a shame not to use it. "No, it's okay. You've been a friend a long time. Come in."

By the time Alcide left, I pretty much just wanted a nap. I know a good hostess would have taken Remy and Hunter out to see the sights, but that was going to have to wait until tomorrow. We had a pool that could amuse them. I showed them around. Got them set up in the pool house with clean sheets and towels and went to lie down with Eric.

I woke awhile later to soft kisses on my neck and shoulders, rolled onto my back and stretched, "What time is it?"

Eric grinned down at me, "Four. You are a very lazy human."

Four. Yikes. I doubted the pool had been that entertaining. Hopefully, they'd found a movie to watch or something. If my Gran were alive she'd be chewing me out but good right now. I gnawed on my lower lip and felt guilty. I think I'd felt guilty more in the last twelve hours than I had in the last year. And to think I always wanted more family around!

"I'm sure Gran would understand," Eric said as he slid lower down on my body to my breasts.

"What are you telepathic? I've heard people find it annoying when you read their minds. And you didn't know Gran. I don't think she'd understand."

He grinned just before his teeth captured my nipple and I hissed. "If she had met me she'd understand."

I laughed, "You are so full of yourself." I squirmed underneath him making a really half-hearted attempt to get out of the bed and see to my guests. I don't even think it could even be considered half-hearted, maybe a sixteenth of my heart wanted to leave that bed and even that was only because I thought I should.

His tongue was trailing down my stomach, "They can wait a little while longer."

I sighed and did a little mental back and forth, "Just a little while longer."

"Oh yes, I promise. Scout's honor," he purred as he hooked my leg over his shoulder and lowered his mouth to me.

I would have laughed at him if I could have, but his tongue was making laughter impossible. "Scouts, huh? I can't imagine why I don't believe you."

He looked up at me and smiled, "Probably because I'm lying. I plan to keep you here awhile."

I made my way downstairs and went straight for the coffeemaker. Fortunately for me, the coffeemaker didn't find houseguests disruptive and had turned on at 3:30 as programmed. The coffee might be more than an hour old, but it was hot and caffeinated so I was happy. I looked around, saw Remy sitting in a lounge chair out by the pool and wandered out to join him. I'd missed the sun for the day, but it was still warm enough to enjoy my coffee by the pool. I settled in next to him and took a sip, heaven, "Where's Hunter?"

Remy nodded his head toward the sunroom, which held some cheery wicker furniture and most importantly, the gaming system. I hated that thing and insisted that it needed its own room and television screen – Eric and Pam could play for hours if given the opportunity. And it wasn't like it was any fun for me to play with them, stupid vampire reflexes.

"Apparently, your husband has some fantastic games. Some Hunter says just came out. Some sort of medieval battle game." Yes, I was more than familiar with that one. I didn't know what it was called either.

I nodded and continued to drink my coffee. From the other room I could hear Hunter cussing at the flatscreen like it was personally involved in the outcome. "You should really talk to him about his language, Remy. His thoughts are even worse." This was absolutely none of my business; I didn't know what was wrong with me. I just got the feeling that Remy had given up. Not that that gave me any right to interfere. I really wasn't certain what I was doing with Remy and Hunter or where the line was as to appropriate or not.

Confirming my feeling, Remy just kept staring at the pool, "He's about the angriest kid I've ever seen. Hell, ever heard of. The counselors at school are scared of him. The teachers are scared of him."

I nodded. I was so lucky to have had my Gran I couldn't thank God enough for giving her to me. It wasn't until I had seen Hunter that I realized what the absolute acceptance of one person could mean for someone like me. And I'd found it twice.

"Can I help? Him? You?"

Remy looked at me sadly, "You do help. That's why I've been asking you to visit so often. He's stronger after he sees you. Happier for a while. I didn't even stop to think about the price your help might come with. I thought maybe you were the one break Hunter got. And you are in a way, unfortunately, you come with vampires. Maybe it's not so bad. I don't know. At least you give him a little bit of peace."

I could help Hunter, but he was right. My help had a price and the only consolation I had was that my price might be better than the alternative of life without the guidance I could offer – it didn't seem like much. I doubted it seemed like much to Remy either, who had tried so hard. "I know this is not what you wanted for him. Maybe it isn't as bad as you think though."

Remy glared at me and I saw Hadley in his head. He was thinking about how much he hated her. Well, who could really blame him? He was wondering if we were all genetic freaks and if she might have wanted to mention that at some point. He wasn't exactly wrong; we weren't even fully human. And neither was Hunter, not completely.

"So you are telling me that the best my nine year old has to hope for is to work for some demon probably in a bar just like you all because he can read thoughts. And apparently that's something else he has his mama to thank for."

I wanted to tell him it wasn't such a bad life. I wanted to tell him there are a lot of kids that don't have enough food or anyone to love them this was just another set of crappy circumstances that a kid was going to have to learn to live with. I wanted to ask him who he felt more sorry for Hunter or himself? I wanted to ask who said anything about a bar? But what came out was, "Eric is not a bad man just because he isn't human." I felt like I'd heard some sort of iteration of that phrase before. "And he'll protect Hunter. And he's not going to make him work in the bar, you ass. We're just trying to help."

Remy leaned back against the lounge chair and closed his eyes and sighed, "This is not what I wanted for my son." Hunter wasn't the only one that was angry. Remy had some issues of his own to work through.

"Yeah, that's why I gave up on the idea of children a long time ago. And its not Hadley's fault entirely. No one told us that it wasn't just me. No one even talked about me. They probably thought Hadley didn't know. I'm not saying she would have been responsible about it if she had known, but she didn't."

The look he gave me told me that he heard what I was saying, but really was just sorry that he'd ever met any of us. He could at least see that Hadley and I were not the same. I didn't give a fig for his regard, but if it made him stay here or let Hunter stay here then I guess it was worth it. "I'm not a bad person either just because I'm in love with someone that isn't human. There are people who love people that are human but don't act it – they hurt them and use them, personally, I think they're a lot worse off than me."

Hunter let out a whoop from the other room that was childlike in its excitement. I felt positively giddy at the noise – considering Hunter was a child it was thrilling to hear him sound like one – and Remy was so pleased and shocked that he wasn't even forming coherent thoughts. We both crossed the pool deck and entered the sunroom about as fast as our human feet could take us.

Eric and Pam sat on the floor of the sunroom, eyes glued to the monitor and gaming devices in hand. Hunter was jumping up and down on my sofa shouting at the screen, which showed virtual Eric and Pam on the final level of this stupid battle game they loved so much. The characters were in some sort of medieval appropriate garb – well sort of medieval appropriate Pam's character looked like a blonde reject from Xena with larger breasts, so maybe not so realistic where the women were concerned.

They were fighting their way to some sort of authority figure and killing at an alarming rate or it would have been alarming if it was real, I couldn't bring myself to get too worked up over vampires killing imaginary people, better than live people. The game ended about thirty seconds later, said authority figure was dead – the blood quotient on that rivaled just about anything I've seen and I've seen some bloody massacres – and Eric's character planting its broadsword into the ground and lifting its shield in triumph. The moment felt odd to me like I was seeing something from the past and maybe something from the future all at the same time. I wasn't going to examine that too closely.

"That was awesome!" Hunter shouted. "I've never seen anybody reach the end of the game, or any game so fast."

Eric looked at him, "It's easier when you were there the first time."

"You were not there the first time!" I snapped at Eric. "And was that even on vampire setting?"

He grinned at me, "If it had been it would have been harder to be so –" he glanced at Hunter. "Awesome."

Pam patted her hair to make certain none of it had escaped from its neat French twist, "Personally, I don't think the game is especially hard even on vampire-setting. I think you're getting soft in your old age. No more battles to fight."

Eric raised an eyebrow at her, "Would you care to test that theory with a little one-on-one combat Pam?"

She smirked at him, "Seriously, you run several businesses. You don't have anything better to do all night than sitting around playing video games to impress the child that suddenly seems to be living in your house?" But you could tell from the look on her face she was dying to try out another game.

"Guys, is this really a good idea?" I threw in and everybody in the room except Remy frowned at me. Eric shoved another game into the player and just like that virtual Eric complete with Viking garb and looking disturbingly like him stood in a field across from virtual Pam, who looked nothing like her at all being both significantly taller and way bustier than real Pam.

"That really looks a lot like you," I commented to Eric settling into a chair to watch. I glanced over at Hunter, "Feet off the couch please Hunter." He glared at me but did remove his feet.

Eric glanced at Hunter and then back at me, "Yes, apparently I am stereotypical."

"Yeah, sure you are."

Eric laughed and turned back to Pam, "Are you ready?

She bowed her head in a rather formal manner, which shocked the heck out of me. It was almost too fast to comprehend. The entire fight lasted maybe a minute and virtual Pam was toast. Once they slowed it down and we watched it on human setting, I saw that she never touched him. It was easy for me to forget sometimes, Eric was a predator and he'd been a warrior for even longer than he'd been a predator. Pam might enjoy the fight, and they may tease each other as if they were equals, but she was still his child. Pam looked a little discomfited to have been beaten so easily.

Eric smiled at her more than a little pleased with himself, "I have work to do, Pam whenever you are ready..." He wandered away into his office and I could feel him gloating all the way down the hall.

Pam did not follow, but settled into an armchair, "Sookie, you seem to have acquired a child since I saw you last. How did this occur? One minute you're leaving Fangtasia and the next you have a man and a boy occupying the pool house."

"It's a long story Pam," not especially interested in reliving all the details.

"It always is with you my friend, fortunately for you, I am immortal and have plenty of time for longwinded tales. Proceed."

And so I explained because clearly she had no problems sitting there until I gave in to what she wanted.

"A tiny telepath, how interesting," she stared at Hunter although not in a hungry kind of way. "I don't much care for children. I would have made a terrible mother."

How was that the first thing she thought of to say? And I thought the frown on Remy's face couldn't get any deeper, but I was wrong.

Hunter just smiled, "My mother was a terrible mother and she became a vampire too."

Pam looked aghast at being compared to Hadley, "Well, she wasn't much of a vampire either."

She stood, "Eric needs me." And was gone down the hall.

Hunter watched her go thinking that she was cool and pretty. I felt like Hunter and I might need to have a talk about the downside of vampirism.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Okay...in case you are all wondering why you just got a second chapter 9...well...I'm really, really sorry about this, but a bunch of you had comments/questions about the story or "the old chapter 9" that I couldn't answer. I didn't have good reasons for why the characters would have gone in a certain direction. And the more I thought about it the more valid those questions seemed. So, I'm reposting chapter 9 with some changes. It's the same chapter up until about halfway down and then I try to give a more complete description about what has been happening with Niall. **

**Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own anything.**

The next several days were as quiet as one could hope for, given everything that was going on. I went to work. Eric went to work. Remy alternated between relieved and concerned about not going to work and Hunter also fluctuated between a child and an angry telepath, mostly depending on what stray thoughts he had managed to glean from Remy and I. He seemed happiest around Pam or Eric and how could I fault him, I'd been happier around Bill than I had almost anyone that I had known prior to that and I'd been an adult that should have fully understood the implications. Well, should've, could've, would've right?

Occasionally, I wrestled with what exactly to tell Hunter. It wasn't like I had a lot of examples to go on and Barry and I had both made our lives with vampires to some extent. So it wasn't like I could exactly say, don't hang with vampires. That's like telling your kid not to smoke when you are sneaking cigarettes after they go to bed or in my case it was more like telling them not to smoke when I was puffing away like a chimney right in front of them. He couldn't really look at my life and think that didn't work out for her…I didn't even think that. At least he and Remy seemed to be getting some good time together or at least it seemed like it was mostly good. And he and I had had some nice moments too. He seemed slightly more inclined to be nice and listen to my advice than he had on the first day, but only slightly and usually after I'd fed him. I guess Remy wasn't much of a cook.

And speaking of food, a major downside of houseguests, especially young male houseguests, is the amount of food you go through. This would be my second stop at the grocery store this week. I was checking out, glancing at my watch to check the minutes until sunset when I noticed that Claude was pacing next to my car in the parking lot. Well, he was going to have to wait until I had purchased an appropriate amount of snack food.

I exited the store carrying six plastic bags and feeling guilty that I didn't have those reusable ones. I needed to get some of those. It wasn't like I usually bought this much food since I was only buying for myself, so I could easily carry it in reusable bags.

Claude was crossing the parking lot practically at a jog, but not to help me with the bags apparently, "You've found another one?" He looked as anxious as I'd ever seen him. Not that that is much of a stretch because usually when I saw him, he just looked bored.

I stared at him blankly. I'd found another what? I held out one of the bags to him, a heavy one, he glanced at it disdainfully, "A relative with the essential spark? A member of the fairy line!" Oh that.

I would have put my hands on my hips in annoyance a la Gran, but the bags made that impossible. Instead I shoved past him toward my car, "Now how in the blazes do you know that?"

I popped my trunk and started loading bags into it. Claude was not a fan of my blasé attitude. "Sookie," he snapped. "This is important."

I sighed and loaded the last of the bags into my trunk and shut it possibly a little more forcefully than necessary, "It always is with you people. And every other Supernatural I've ever met. What is it with you people anyway? Your lives are way longer than ours. Why are you always in such a rush?"

Claude ignored my little outburst and sat himself in the passenger side of my car. I stood there for a moment feeling indignant that he had just let himself into my car and then I climbed into the driver side because, well, what else was I going to do? I did take a moment to glare at Claude though before I started the engine, "So how'd you hear about him anyway?"

The bored expression had returned, "Niall. He's very worried."

Interesting. And frightening too. The last time Niall had been worried about me things hadn't turned out well for me. "Why?"

Claude turned his beautiful face toward me, although it didn't look very beautiful right now and it didn't look bored either…it looked fierce. "There are several groups that do not like the amount of power that seems to be congregating around you. Or around that gorgeous corpse you are married too."

"Don't call him that," I snapped slamming the car into reverse. "You need to explain that statement to me. Not the corpse one. The one about power."

Claude looked out the window, "I have a message for Eric from Niall and I don't feel like telling it twice. Let's go to your house."

I ground my teeth in irritation. I did not want to have Claude over to my house. That seems like a ludicrous concern given that he popped to the grocery store with an important message, presumably about people wanting me dead, but regardless he was annoying me and I didn't feel like being hospitable. It irked me that there didn't seem to be anyway around it.

We drove to the house in silence. For me, it was a frightened but also kind of annoyed silence, but I think Claude just didn't feel like talking. It was not quite twilight when we arrived. I opened the garage door pulled in and shut it.

The moment the door touched the cement the house door flew open and Eric stood in the doorway to the kitchen. He was showered and dressed obviously having risen some time ago. He looked at me carefully, checking me over for injuries as I exited the car, "You are afraid." He strode toward me, eyes on mine continuing to peruse me for marks or bruises and then nodded satisfied that there were no actual injuries, just fear.

I jerked my head toward Claude, "He's got a message from Niall."

Eric looked at Claude who was staring back at Eric, eyes narrowed, "It's not even dusk yet. You two are playing with fire. And it's seriously pissing off a lot of people."

Eric and I both ignored him. Instead Eric put his hand on the top of my head and slowly stroked my hair, "How was work?"

I shrugged, "Good. Are they driving you crazy? I got them more food." Now it was Eric's turn to shrug, "I was down for the day and then I worked in my office for awhile. He's quite a loud child."

Claude crossed to us, not interested in how our days had been, and held out a letter giving it a little wave so Eric would know he was waiting. Eric took the letter and smirked at it, "Who did this used to be?"

Claude frowned at him, "One of several people that think that anyone with even a touch of royal fairy blood should not be married to a vampire."

Eric cracked the seal and said to Claude, "You fairies are such horrific snobs." He went into the house carrying the letter and I thought about protesting the idea of bringing old skin into the house, but figured no one would really listen to me anyway. Claude and I followed him in.

Eric sat at the kitchen table and read Niall's letter. He placed it carefully on the table and looked at Claude, "There is a message as well then."

Claude nodded pulling out a chair to join Eric at the table, "Yes. You are running out of time."

Eric looked thoughtful, "Am I running out of time or is Niall? There is unrest. Again. You are a very contentious people."

Claude looked amused, "Well coming from a vampire I don't even know what to say to that." Then his face became more serious, "If Niall has enemies; so do you. She was always a prize and now there is another one. Living here. You have surrounded yourself with part-fey humans."

Eric cocked an eyebrow at him, "It was not intentional. I wanted that human." He pointed at me. "The rest of you just came with her. And you are proving practically impossible to get rid of. Like lice."

Claude leaned forward ignoring the lice dig, which personally gave me the willies, "It is time to cement your power if you wish to protect her. Niall must do the same. He requests a meeting tonight."

I had been moving around the kitchen putting away the groceries, but stopped and turned toward Claude, peanut butter still in hand, "He wants to come here."

Eric swung around to look at me hearing the mistrust in my voice, but he said nothing. "I don't know about that," I replied even though no one had been talking to me just about me.

I eyed Claude suspiciously, "What does he want?"

Claude and Eric were both silent. The kind of silent that makes you nervous or at least makes me nervous, "Eric, what does he want?" I marched over the table to pick up the letter. Claude looked alarmed, but Eric made no move to stop me. The letter didn't seem to say anything much as far as I could tell. I glared at Eric and tapped my foot a little just in case he wasn't clear that I expected an answer on whatever it was that Eric was picking up from the letter that I just wasn't getting.

Claude and Eric were both silent. The kind of silent that makes you nervous or at least makes me nervous, "Eric, what does he want?" I marched over the table to pick up the letter. Claude looked alarmed, but Eric made no move to stop me. The letter didn't seem to say anything much as far as I could tell. I glared at Eric and tapped my foot a little just in case he wasn't clear that I expected an answer on whatever it was that Eric was picking up from the letter that I just wasn't getting.

Eric shrugged and looked at Claude, "How Niall thinks has always been beyond me."

"He wants to meet the boy," Claude said leaning back in his chair the bored expression returning as he looked around the kitchen. He stood and began wandering around. I couldn't tell if he was looking for Hunter or just checking out the house. He peaked into the dining room, "Nice."

I wanted to kill him. Not literally of course, he is after all, my cousin, but I was just done with the whole fairy-side of the family tree. They were those relatives that always showed up for holiday barbecues, but never once offered to host.

"Why?" I persisted. "I'm not getting involved with any of you again unless I know why."

Claude sighed just to let me know how much I was irritating him. As if I cared at all whether or not I was annoying Claude. "You've been making life quite difficult for Niall," he said finally. "Everyone knows he was in contact with you. Everyone knows he killed others of our kind to save you. That wasn't a universally popular decision. Everyone knows you are sharing our blood, our spark with a vampire. Willingly." I could see where that might be a problem for the blood purity group although Niall didn't seem like the type to suffer dissenters hence the skin letter – again not that I really gave a hoot if my living arrangements were causing a problem for Niall. Once I'd had the fantasy that we could have some sort of loving family relationship, but I'd lost that illusion in an extremely painful way. And it didn't seem like that was the only problem anyway. Because really these were Niall's problems and they had nothing to do with Eric and I and even less to do with Hunter.

"What else?" I snapped and noticed Eric gave me a slight nod of approval. Good to know he thought there was more too.

Claude looked at Eric and me and shook his head. He peeked around the entrance to the family room and regarded the room for a moment, "Did you decorate by yourself Sookie? It looks great in here. Not like your old house at all." Gee, thanks nothing like the back handed compliment. He sat down at the table again, "Then there is your friend Victor."

Now it was Eric's turn to lean forward and growl, "What about Victor?"

"He's obsessed with the idea of humans that are part-fey – thanks to you – and whether or not they all have powers. The People that are not concerned with blood purity are upset because they are hearing that a vampire is stalking their human relations."

"I thought the portals were closed," I bit out. "That's what Niall told me before we left. How would they even know?"

Claude shrugged, "That was four years ago Sookie. You know how things are. At first, everyone is really vigilant and concerned, but it fades. Someone gets in touch with a former charge or a half-human grandchild becomes ill and they hear about it next thing you know outside information starts filtering through, rumors are flying and people are worried. Some want the portals open so they can protect their kin. Others are set against it." Okay, I got it. No one could agree and Niall was desperately trying to hold the center.

"How does Hunter fit in?" I was surprised that it was Eric that asked. It had been my next question.

"You know the old stories about fairies and children. We've always watched for the special ones. Niall wants to know about his power. The child is still young and look at Sookie and how powerful she's become. He can't be raised by a vampire. He needs to be protected."

Eric bristled and sat up a little straighter in his chair, "I am certain that Niall would not suggest you come to my home and insult me by implying that I would start feeding my blood to a small child."

Claude stared at Eric for several heartbeats and I wondered if I was going to have to throw myself between them to prevent bloodshed the way they were glaring at each other. "Maybe you wouldn't," Claude replied. "But you're not the most powerful vampire in Louisiana now are you? And from what we hear he wouldn't be bothered by that in the least. If you can not protect that boy, he is our kin, royal blood."

"Oh my God, you have got to be kidding me with this royal blood thing!" I couldn't take another minute of posturing especially since I didn't think this was like the male posturing you saw in Merlotte's on a Saturday night. This was more like when one tiger wandered into another's territory. And enough with the damn blood already. It was always about freaking blood. "His life isn't worth any more than any other part-fey human out there."

Claude gave me a cold look, "Niall does not agree. And he would like to meet the boy."

'To determine if he has the essential spark?" My rage felt glacial, which was not usual for me. I was usually fiery, but this evening I felt positively icy. "And if he doesn't?"

Claude rose from the table, "Then it will not be of consequence to the People if the vampire gets him."

I crossed the room in three strides and poked Claude in the chest, "Get the hell out of here! And you tell Niall that if he wants to meet Hunter he can call me and ask me. No more letters on the skin of our enemies addressed to Eric. He can come hat in hand and maybe I'll say yes, but he shouldn't count on it."

Claude looked at Eric who examined the table with interest not wanting to contradict me. And without another word he walked to the front door and let himself out. Eric and I stayed in the kitchen while my breathing returned to normal. When my heart rate had slowed, Eric spoke, "You know he will come."

I nodded and wiped an angry tear away with my fist.

A:/N: If you are re-reading, you'll notice I took out the part about Hunter being heir. And here's why, Charlaine Harris recently said "when is a clever plot development not a clever plot development, when it stops the action of the story." Well, I wouldn't say that it stopped the action of the story, but as I was reading people's comments I realized it would change the action of the story in a way I didn't want it to go. So thank you community for making me realize I was about to paint myself into a HUGE corner. Hopefully, I haven't annoyed you too badly. HTDT will keep moving forward without any more false chapters, I promise! And if you liked it better the other way, I'm sorry...but I really think the story will turn out better like this.


	10. Chapter 10

Eric reached out a long arm and wrapped it around my hips pulling me close to him, "You do not need to be afraid."

I nodded and wiped angrily at my other eye, "I'm not. I'm angry." And that's why I was crying, just anger. There was absolutely no backlash about past events happening here and that's what I was going to keep telling myself. That and that I was safe here.

He raised his face to me, "That's better. I'd rather have you angry than frightened." I don't know what it was about that moment or the look on his face that made me shift my thoughts toward him and away from myself. We'd become pretty comfortable in our bond with each other and usually I could only feel him if I searched, but now his emotions were almost overwhelming my own. In fact, they were. I could feel his pride and his frustration. I could feel his want or maybe that was my need, I couldn't differentiate between the two right at the moment. "Where's Hunter and Remy?" I asked as I straddled his lap.

"Pool house," he grunted looking intrigued that things were going to go in this direction, pleased and intrigued. I figured I'd keep it to myself that I thought maybe that we were all going to die in the next couple of days if not the next couple of hours either at the hands of angry fairies or fairy-stalking vampires. It wasn't that I didn't trust Eric, it was just how long could we keep beating the odds. And in my experience, meetings with Niall meant imminent attack and frankly it wasn't like time spent with Victor ever ended in a tea party either.

"That's a good place for them to be," I responded leaning in to kiss him. He didn't respond right away but seemed to be probing my mood trying to figure out where all this desire was coming from. I just needed to feel like he was with me. Really with me. I leaned my forehead against his for a moment and said quietly, "Take me upstairs." I felt his lips brush my forehead as he rose and carried me up the stairs. I snuggled into his chest and felt comfort. Then I took a moment to let my fear of facing my relatives and Victor just wash over me. It engulfed me for a moment and I felt like I was drowning in terror. I felt Eric's grip on me tighten as he felt my fear too. And then, I took a deep breath and let it go. I'd spent several years dealing with my fear and I wasn't going to let it back in now. I just needed to acknowledge it and move beyond it. I was not afraid of Niall himself, I did not believe that he meant me any harm, it was just everything he brought with him.

I concentrated on Eric and drew courage from him. I wanted to focus on us because that was where I found my strength, knowing that in this place alone with him, everything was always okay, even when it completely wasn't. Probably this wasn't the way to prepare for whatever was about to happen here, probably there should be weapon gathering or strategizing or maybe just running for the hills at least in my case, but I didn't really care. Being carried up the stairs like I was Scarlett O'Hara was what I was going with and I thought it was a damn good choice. He laid me on our bed and I opened my eyes to look at him, "So Niall's coming to visit."

He grinned at me and lay down beside me, "You want to talk about Niall right now? I thought you wanted something else." His fingers were lazily undoing the buttons on my shirt as if we weren't on any kind of a timeline. When the last button was undone he spread the shirt wide and placed one kiss in between the valley of my breasts, "Perhaps if I tell you how much I missed you today. Or how very beautiful you are. Or that you are my only love. I could recite poetry."

I quirked an eyebrow at him, "I don't really want any of that. And I don't really want to talk about Niall."

Eric kissed my ear and worked his way down my neck. I could feel the heat starting to build between my legs as he divested himself of his shirt. He ran a fang along my shoulder, "I really don't want to talk about him either. Let's talk about something else." He made it sound dirty in a really good way. He slid out of his pants. He was wearing boxers today, emerald green silk. I always wondered why Eric chose the underwear he chose on certain days. I'd never asked.

"Like what?" I smiled at him.

"Let's talk about going on vacation. I want to take you someplace where you can lie naked in the sun all day and then I can spend the night licking it from your skin." Yeah, that sounded like a pretty decent vacation although the licking part might get a little sticky after awhile, but not necessarily bad sticky. I could go for that. I sighed as he unzipped my skirt and slid it down my legs until gravity took over and it pooled on the floor beneath me. I let my right shoe fall off my foot, but Eric jerked away from me and caught it before it hit the floor, "Leave those on. They look wonderful on you." He placed the shoe reverently back on my foot. I stroked his cheek with my fingers. "Do you ever get tired of hearing that I love you?"

He grinned, "I think I will keep you around for hundreds of years to find out."

I frowned at him, but it was more playful than severe, "Let's see if you can keep me alive for the next couple of weeks and we'll take it from there."

His face became serious, "I accept this challenge. In fact, you request too little of me." He leaned in to kiss me deeply and then surprised me by rolling us so I was on top of him my hair hanging in his face. I reached around behind me to pull it back over my shoulder when he pulled my hands down away from my hair, "Don't. It's beautiful. You are beautiful." I reached around to undo my bra. "And getting more beautiful all the time," he leered at me. I laughed; these were the moments that I loved best. These were the moments when we were at our best – he and I laughing together, united and not just in the physical sense that was just an outlet for it.

His hands slid to my breasts and I sighed softly. He smiled at me, "I was looking for something a little louder than that. I must be losing my touch." And pinched my nipples lightly, well maybe not that lightly, which did achieve significantly louder noise from me especially when his fingers dipped inside of me, testing me. His grin widened, "That's a little better." He raised my hips and lowered me down onto him slowly, very slowly. Sometimes there were real benefits to having a husband that was inhumanly strong. It was unlikely that a human male would be likely to hold my size 8 (okay, maybe 10) self a foot off the bed and lower me onto him one devastating inch at a time. This time he was rewarded with a scream and his favorite one too. Even though I thought I might have been having an out of body experience, I was fully aware of his cat that ate the canary look when I screamed out, "Eric!"

We lay in bed, hands entwined, staring at the ceiling. I rolled onto my side draping my arm across Eric's abdomen. "Hey, what did Claude mean when he said you needed to consolidate your power." This might not be pillow talk for most couples, but it wasn't too far off of normal for us. Dorothy, you aren't in Bon Temps anymore. I still had to shake myself daily to figure out how I had gotten here.

Eric stroked my hair absently his mind elsewhere, "Victor." I waited for a moment, but he didn't say anything else. I sighed in frustration. Seriously, how many years were we going to need to be together before I got more than one word answers without prompting him? I had a feeling the answer to that one might be never, "What about Victor?"

Eric sat up and leaned against the headboard looking down at me, "I have known for awhile that Victor was intrigued by the idea of humans with fey-blood. I have been planning in case there was a need."

This was starting to sound like something I wasn't going to like. It was definitely sounding like something I didn't know about. I'd start with an easy one and work my way into the argument-provoking questions. I wondered if there were courses out there about open communications between vampire and spouse. And then I wondered if this was even a vampire thing or if Eric had always kept his own counsel. I looked him in the eye, "Intrigued?"

He met my gaze unwavering, in fact, the way he was looking at me almost made me look away, but I didn't do that anymore, not with Eric. Not with anyone really, but with Eric there was no need. "Obsessed might be more accurate," he stated as though he had just realized he had understated it. Bull, he'd done it on purpose. Just like he hadn't told me anything about it on purpose.

It was interesting though. And not in a good way at all. I thought about leaving it at that, but as they say, knowing is half the battle, "So you've been planning?"

He smiled and not the same kind of smile he'd given me earlier when we were getting naked. This one, although equally fangy, had more of a drink-the-blood-of-my-enemies feel to it. "Again, perhaps planning is not the right word. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Pam and I have been working to orchestrate his downfall since the night you were taken. And it appears that Victor may have placed the final nail in his coffin, so to speak." He looked unendingly pleased at the pun.

I just wasn't finding it quite as amusing, "How so?"

He lost his look of amusement, "If he has decided that you are the human that he must have or your relative. This is unacceptable to me and if that is the case then as Niall said, it is time to move against him. Also, his obsession has caused him to anger the fairy clans and that is a large mistake." He looked at me for a moment debating how much to say and then continued, "I have not shared these plans with you prior to this because you indicated to me you were not interested in vampire politics and I have no desire to embroil you in them if you do not chose, but I have always kept in touch with Niall and counted on his support." I felt like he was reading me a disclaimer off a carton of cigarettes. And I wasn't too certain how I felt about it. I was circling toward annoyed, but trying not to go there. I hated to feel annoyed so quickly after sex.

Somewhat reluctantly, I sat up too and tucked my legs underneath me. I made certain to cover up all the good parts with a sheet; this was no longer a naked conversation. Although the sheet was barely covering Eric, so apparently he wasn't fussy about being naked while angry or maybe he just wasn't angry. I had a lot of questions about what he was telling me: what did count on Niall for his support mean? And what did always stayed in touch mean?

Let me make this clear I trust Eric with my life, but I've gotten to that place by making a few compromises and coming to some hard truths about that very life that I trust him with. And this moment reminded me of some of those hard truths like even though I might love Eric with everything I had in me, some of the things he was willing to do to keep me safe…it isn't that I didn't want him to do them I just didn't like that our lives were like that. I guess I hated that he had to do them, but of course, he was a vampire so he probably didn't care. It made my head hurt.

I chewed on my lip for a moment or two thinking about what I wanted to say here. He waited, patiently, waiting for me to get there. I had a realization that warmed me; Eric was almost always waiting for me to get there. I wondered when he'd started waiting for me and felt my irritation dissipate. "I know it might not really make a difference in the outcome, but this is to keep us safe right, not because you want more power…right?" I hated that I said it, but it kind of needed to be asked.

He looked back at me, "I do not see that it makes much of a difference. The more power I have, the safer you are."

I flopped back on the bed, "I know that. But you might have just told me what I wanted to hear."

He leaned over me and his hair fell onto my shoulders and breasts. I could feel that he was deeply proud that I was his wife. I couldn't really figure that out, but I could be happy about it. "That would be beneath you and undoubtedly beneath me." He looked down at my body under his and smiled, "I suppose I am lucky that since I have been cursed with a moral compass, it has such lovely breasts." He kissed my nose and rose from the bed. "You should dress. Niall will be here soon."

He was in the bathroom before I could even rise up from my prone position. I heard the shower turn on and still felt out of sorts for some reason that I couldn't quite place. I didn't know how I felt about being a vampire's moral compass. I don't know what it said about me, but I didn't think that was really what was bothering me. And then it sort of hit me, was it Eric's unrest?

I rose from the bed, padded into the bathroom and stuck my head into the shower. At first I was momentarily distracted by wet Viking and then I focused, "Don't you think we should talk about you being all-jacked up on semi-fey blood or whatever before Niall gets here? Since you're worried he's angry about it."

He smiled at me from underneath the stream of water, "As if I give a rat's ass what Niall thinks." He held out his hand to me, "You make me stronger. Who is to say if it's the fairy part of you or just the woman you are. I think fairies exaggerate their powers, anyway." He winked at me. I took his hand and stepped inside, what the hell I needed to get clean anyway.

A/N: Sorry to be such a long time updating. Next week is a bad travel week so it may be two weeks before Niall's visit gets posted. Thanks so much to everyone that has reviewed and favorited, etc.


	11. Chapter 11

Eric had gone downstairs to his office. I looked around the bedroom and thought it could use a little straightening up so I remade the bed, put Eric's cell phone on it's charger, gathered up loose change that had been left of the dresser and that sort of thing. Also, when was the last time we'd done any laundry? Before I left on my trip, I knew that. I walked into the closet and looked at the hamper, as I suspected it was overflowing and Eric hadn't bothered to use the three separate bins I had installed for sorting colors. I sighed and yanked the bins out of the closet to dump the clothes on the bed. I drifted away in this mindless task until I heard a small knock. I turned and saw Hunter peeking into the bedroom, "Hi."

I gave him a huge smile, "Hi, yourself. You want to help me." I nodded toward the clothes. He didn't exactly nod, but he did walk over and stand by the bed. When he was standing there I noticed a leopard print thong of mine and wondered if asking him to help was such a good idea, but I just kept smiling. I worked in silence for what felt like a really long time before Hunter finally spoke, "Can I ask you something?" As if that wasn't the whole reason why I had been working in silence.

"Sure," I said and kept sorting. I didn't want him to feel like anything that he had to say was a big deal.

"Who were the people that hurt you so bad?" If he had kicked me in the teeth I would not have been more surprised. I am used to being the only one privy to other people's deepest, darkest secrets and I suddenly felt the full weight of why I'd been so damn unpopular my whole life. I didn't really like having my mind read.

"You heard that from me, huh?" I tried to seem nonchalant. It wasn't going to increase his trust in me or make him feel secure if I sat down on the bed and started crying.

He nodded, "You and the other guy that was here." Other guy? What other guy? I guess I was so surprised I didn't block because Hunter answered me, "You know, the one you were so angry at. The one who brought the skin letter, which is so fucking cool!"

I glared at him, "Hunter that kind of talk is not okay in this house." And then what he said really hit me. Hunter could hear fey. Or at least he'd heard Claude. I couldn't hear them. Or at least not with any consistency. I wondered if Hunter could.

"So they're not regular people?" Crap, I needed to work on my blocking, which was a pain in the rear in my own house. Hunter looked really nervous, way more scared than I had seen him since he'd been here. I stopped sorting and sat down on the bed.

"No, they're not regular people. They're fairies. We're descended from them – that means they're our relatives. Your mom and I had the same grandfather and he was a fairy, well half, but still a fairy. But he wasn't the one who hurt me," I explained when I saw and even more nervous look on Hunter's face. "And the ones who did. They're gone. Dead."

Hunter nodded, but he didn't seem terribly relieved. I can't say that I blamed him. It didn't make me feel that much better either or at least not the way you might think that it would. He sat down on the bed, "So is that who is coming here? Your grandfather?" I could tell he was trying to make himself feel better by casting this scary person into a familiar role. I understood that. I'd made the same mistake myself and I was an adult.

"No, it's his father. My great-grandfather. He…well, he's like a king there. And he kind of watches over us even though fairies and humans aren't supposed to have contact anymore. But…" I trailed off. I didn't really know how to explain all this.

"But we shouldn't trust him?" Hunter asked.

I nodded, sad that I was ripping away another piece of his innocence, "He isn't trying to hurt us, but a lot of people want to hurt him and if it's him or us, he's going to chose him."

Hunter nodded sagely, "Most everybody is like that."

I hated that he said that. I stood up and started sorting laundry again, "Not everybody."

Hunter jumped off the bed like it had just caught fire and shouted at me, "I can hear in people's heads! I know that's what people are like."

I just looked at him, "I can hear into their heads too. And I've been listening for a lot more years than you. Not everybody thinks that way." I paused for a second, tossed a few more t-shirts into the lights pile and decided I didn't want him to see me as a liar, "But you are right, a lot of people do. And Niall – that's his name – I can't see in his head, but I know that if comes down to his power or us…he's been ruling for a lot of years and he likes it." No knight on a white horse in great-granddaddy.

I dumped the lights into a laundry basket and then did the same with the darks. There were a lot more darks. I looked at them wondering if I needed a second basket and decided I could at least make it to the laundry room. I nodded at the basket of lights, "You want to help me carry that downstairs."

Hunter chewed on his lip for a second and then picked up the basket. I was pleased that I managed to refrain from breaking out into a victory dance. I walked out the door and he followed, "Sookie, what does he want me for?"

I shook my head, "I don't know Hunter, but he isn't going to hurt you. He likes to meet his family. He likes to keep track of the ones that have magic or whatever. Fairies are big on bloodlines and this thing called a spark, I don't know what it is before you ask, but I think a lot of people think you have it."

"Because I'm a telepath," he sighed.

I shrugged, "I guess. Although they tell me that telepathy isn't a fairy trait, so I don't know why the two seem to work together."

Hunter smiled at me, "Maybe you and I are just real unlucky."

I grinned back at him, "That could be." We walked down a few more steps and he said, "Oh hey, Pam's here. And another vampire too. Super mopey."

That would probably be Bill. He was the only vampire I knew that might be described as mopey. Maybe there were others out there, but they sure as heck didn't gather around Eric, moping was not an activity that Eric found attractive or even understood. "Dark hair?" I asked Hunter. He nodded. "That's Bill. He was my neighbor when I lived in Bon Temps." And a whole lot of other things too that I was carefully blocking from Hunter.

Hunter grinned at me, "He's got a crush on you." My heart stopped for a moment as I wondered if he could hear Bill.

I lowered my voice and leaned over to whisper in Hunter's ear, not an easy trick holding a laundry basket, "You couldn't hear him could you?"

Hunter just laughed, "No, Pam's making fun of him about it. I guess he kept asking about you when he first got here. It's kind of funny."

Poor Bill. But I had to wonder why Eric thought it might be good to have back-up for a meeting with Niall. I couldn't come up with any reasons that made me feel better.

I sat in the living room, which we never used, hell we barely used any of the house, dressed casually for what felt like a formal occasion. It wasn't formal of course, seeing your great-grandfather isn't really formal unless you're royalty…so maybe it was formal. Well, if it was I wasn't dressed for it. Pam was answering the door and I felt like I'd had about two gallons of coffee, maybe not just regular coffee maybe espresso. I wanted to get it over with and at the same time I wanted the earth to swallow me up so it never happened. Eric entered from the back of the room, his office was behind us, and put his hands on my shoulders. I know his intention was to soothe me, but I almost jumped out of my skin when he first put his hands on my shoulders. I turned to look at him and could see the concern on his face. He was wondering if I couldn't handle being involved with the fey again. Pam escorted Niall into the room and gestured for him to take a seat. Niall smiled at me, "You look well child."

I nodded and smiled weakly in return. My feelings on Niall ebbed and flowed depending on the day. I didn't exactly blame him for what happened to me, but I didn't consider him blameless either. Certainly, I did not believe that my best interest was forefront in his mind.

Eric came from behind the sofa to sit next to me on the sofa and entwined my hand with his, which I was thankful for the contact was comforting. Now Niall turned to Eric, "And you look positively blooming with health. Your bond with her has caused me many issues." Well that was a bit of a conversation stopper. Niall frowned at us and I felt like my Dad had just caught me having sex with my boyfriend after school – or at least what I would imagine that might have felt like.

Eric did not smile at Niall at all, but I could feel his mood and laughing on the inside would have been an enormous understatement. "It is as though she gives me a heartbeat." And he turned to look at me mooning like a lovesick teen. I quirked an eyebrow at him with interest and amusement, "Who knew." He grinned at me amused by the whole situation.

Niall cringed slightly. I guess he didn't much like the idea of lovesick Eric feeding on me nightly, but I didn't think his concern came from any deep seeded love for me. I tore my eyes away from Eric and looked at Niall, "I think that's about enough small talk. What do you care about my bond with Eric and what do you want with Hunter?"

He smiled sadly, "How can you say this to me? I told you he was a good man. I have withstood insults over my descendant of royal blood, one who carries our very essence, being mated to a vampire. I have protected you when others would wish such an embarrassment eradicated." I felt Eric growl low in his chest, but Niall simply waved an impatient hand at him. "I am the sole-surviving prince, none shall tell me who my grand-daughter may lie with, but so much of our blood Sookie. It is a scandal. Especially when other vampires hunt us."

I had rolled my eyes several times during the course of this little speech and could not help rolling them again at the end of it. Also, the phrase, "lie with" made it hard for me to take it too seriously. Niall was starting to remind me of Lear, aging king whining about all the problems of power …bitch moan, bitch moan. Well, I was no Goneril or Regan. I had no plans to kiss his ass. He was just going to have to deal with it. I wasn't interested in anything he had to give me and I didn't care what was happening in his realm. "You need to let go of this whole essence thing," I snapped at him.

Eric grinned broadly, but did not comment. Instead, he leaned back into the sofa and put his large booted-feet on my coffee table. I shot him a look that he ignored. And then he gave Niall a rather hard look, "And it is not as though the arrangement has been without its benefits to you."

My head swung around in surprise. Not without its benefits to Niall? Excuse me? What was he talking about? Niall cleared it right up for me by snapping back, "It is of equal benefit to you to make certain the doorway in her woods remains protected! To protect other part-fey from that madman in this state. Why do you do nothing as he hunts others like her? It should be stopped." That last part seemed to be more to himself than to Eric or me. He rubbed his forehead; clearly it had been a hard four years for Niall. "You would have had your people watch the portal without my promise to leave her out of fairy politics." He looked back at Eric, "And I would have, but the situation has changed. And now, your arrangement with her has relevance to me."

Eric looked at me and could tell from the look on my face that I was less than pleased to be hearing about this now. He shrugged at me, "In my day I was very common to bargain with your wife's family regarding the terms of the marriage. A little protection for a little something else."

We would be discussing this later, in detail. For the moment I contented myself with, "You don't really think that's an acceptable line of thinking, do you? In your day, when do you ever think like that." And when I thought of all the times he had told me not to sell the farm - it was too big a part of who I was so he'd claimed conveniently forgetting to mention he was responsible for guarding some otherworldly portal -I wanted to smack him. In fact, I was going to smack him because this involved us and he wasn't supposed to hide stuff that involved us. I punched him on the arm and mimicked, "'Don't sell the farm Sookie…you grew up there'…asshole." He was trying to look like he felt bad, but it wasn't working, mostly he just looked surprised that I had punched him. He brought my hand, which I have to say kind of hurt from the punching-thing his arm was hard, up to his lips and kissed it softly and then turned his attention back to Niall.

"None of this brings us to why you want the boy," Eric said as though the whole doorway-watching thing hadn't even happened. Niall leaned forward in his armchair and snapped back, "It has everything to do with it. Everything! I cannot have another of my blood in the clutches of a vampire! Even you. Not while other vampires enslave the relatives of my people, using them. People are sneaking relatives into our realm weekly while my great-granddaughter and great-great-grandson are living with a vampire, even one once seen as a friend…" He took a deep breath and tried to gain some control over himself. He was clearly stressed out. "You must understand," he said to Eric totally ignoring me the descendant he was supposedly worried about. "I can not be seen as being weak on this issue." Freaking supernaturals, it was always about power.

Niall turned to me, "I know you do not understand any of this or see it as reasonable. But fairies are proud of their heritage, of their bloodlines, their power. That you share it so freely with an ally of this Madden's…"

For a moment, I bristled at that. How could he think we were aligned with Victor Madden? But of course, on the outside, we were. I looked at Eric who nodded at me and sighed audibly, "You know we're not really allied with Madden right?" Niall nodded. "And I'm like an eighth fairy Niall, what is the big deal?"

He was shaking his head at me now, frustrated, "Genetics are a strange thing Sookie. You may be just a fraction of fairy, but you have many of our traits. And the people do not like the idea of a part-fey vampire." Again with the snobbery.

He looked back and forth between Eric and I assessing. I suppose he could tell that we were completely unmoved by what a scandal his people thought it was that he was letting me run around with a lesser creature and bringing others of "our kind" into the fold, as in Hunter. His eyes darted back and forth in a way that I completely didn't trust and then he dropped the bomb, "But their not liking it is not even an issue, in truth, as you are sky-fairy. If you were water perhaps their distaste would be the only issue."

I felt dread rise up from Eric, a vague sense of understanding and followed by outright fear. He leaned forward on the sofa and said softly to Niall, "Explain what that means."

Niall, I had to admit, did look as if what he was about to say gave him a certain amount of pain, "You can not turn a sky fairy into a vampire, my son, they need light to live. Without sun, even as minutely sky fairy as she is, she will not survive. If you turn her, you will kill her."

The kickback from Eric's pain and rage practically knocked me off the sofa. I felt like I had doubled over, collapsed in grief. I felt as though the room was being upturned in rage, furniture destroyed, draperies shredded, Niall's head severed. But in reality, no one had moved. A muscle in Eric's jaw twitched slightly and I heard a sharp intake of breath from Pam in the other room, not that I could blame her. His pain was astounding. And yet, we sat in silence.

"Thank you Niall," I said as politely as I could manage once I thought I could open my mouth and form words as opposed to some sort of animalistic sound of pain. The amazing part was that this wasn't even my own pain. I was so overwhelmed by his I couldn't process mine. "That's important information to have."

"Yes," Eric ground out from between his teeth dropping my hand as if it was made of silver. "Just think how helpful it would have been to know that five years ago." He stood without looking at me and called out rather louder than he needed to, "Pam, bring the boy!"

Still reeling from Niall's comments, I could hardly process what Eric had just said. What the hell was he doing? "Eric," I protested. Although I wasn't really certain what I was protesting. Were we letting Niall have Hunter? When had that become the plan? He was completely shut off from me. I could sense nothing from him. And he wouldn't look at me. Why wouldn't he look at me?

I grabbed his hand, "Eric what are you doing?"

"Let him meet Hunter, Sookie." Eric sounded exhausted. "If fairies are bringing their half-breed relatives to their realm to protect them from marauding vampires, Niall can not be seen as letting his relatives be food for them. Especially those that are talented. You are known throughout the supernatural world and yet he did not protect you from me. That is how it is seen. I am no different from Victor."

I was hanging onto his hand with all my strength at this point and Eric, although not actively trying to get away from me, was clearly keeping his distance. He wanted as little contact as possible. "That's not how I see it," my voice sounded desperate and screechy. I hated the way I sounded.

Niall commented from the sofa, "It is, in truth not even how I see it, but it is a fairly accurate depiction of how my realm views it."

Eric nodded, "I understand. It is a scandal that is killing your regime. You did not think anyone would care what your bastard great grand-daughter did in her bedroom, but they do. Especially now that Sookie is so well-known and Victor is draining or caging any part-fey he can get his hands on."

Umm, ouch Eric. No reason to take it out on me. I had had enough of this. All of it. I rose on shaky legs, "Niall, can I get you a cup of tea. Eric and I need to discuss a thing or two. Please excuse us."

Niall nodded, "Take your time. I don't need any tea. Perhaps a newspaper, I am always interested in what is going on in this realm."

Pam was in the living room with three different newspapers before he even finished the sentence. And then she sat, "I'll keep him company." Good plan. Don't want Niall roaming around the house alone.

I wrapped my hand around Eric's wrist and dragged him from the room into his office, which I knew to be soundproofed and shut the door. I turned on him the moment we got inside, "What is your problem? I thought you didn't mind if I was never turned."

He sank into a guest chair, "Don't be absurd! Of course I mind!" He glared at me angrily as if this was my fault. As if I had trapped him into a marriage that was going to end up being really short, at least from his point of view. Then he reached out and grabbed my wrists, lightening fast, and pulled me onto his lap. Tears were pouring down his cheeks, which made me cry too, "In all these years, I have only chosen one wife. And you will be taken from me in almost no time. You are mine. I did not think…you are mine."

I stroked his hair and made soft, soothing sounds as though I was comforting a child. I knew what he was trying to say with the whole "mine" thing. He was trying to say that it didn't seem like I could be taken from him, we belonged to each other. How could one of us be there when the other was not? He'd thought on it but it had never really believed it was going to be like that. Not really. "I'll wait you know."

He looked at me puzzled. So I explained, "When I'm gone. I'll still be with you. Waiting for you. You'll come when you're ready and I'll be there."

He grunted, "My people believed this too. The only evidence I've seen of it is that people still seem to believe it." He looked at me, "Niall should have told me from the beginning."

I shrugged, "Would it have made a difference?"

He burrowed his face into my neck, "I would not have hoped as I did. You give me such hope. I imagined...it does not matter."

I smiled at him, "It matters to me. I know what you hoped. I thought about it too. All the time." I paused for a moment, "Are you giving him Hunter because you're angry that I'm going to grow old and die? Because you know that doesn't make sense."

Eric leaned his head back in the chair, "I'm not giving him Hunter. He has a right to meet him. And have you ever thought that maybe if you had met him younger, life would have been different for you. Niall is not inherently bad. He just thinks differently about things than a human might. Perhaps if he had been part of your life from a young age your gift would not have been so hard for you. Perhaps you would not need to be a vampire's meal ticket for protection."

I had meant to touch his face to get his attention, but my hand connected a little harded that I might have planned, possibly because I found his statement so incredibly annoying, "That's just one of those things people say when they're feeling sorry for themselves, right? You don't actually think that." And for the first time ever, I saw Eric look ashamed. It wasn't a look I liked on him. As for the part about Hunter, it wasn't a bad point. I only saw the pain that Niall had brought me, but maybe there could have been a different way. I'd never know, but maybe Hunter could. "But we're not going to let him take Hunter?"

Eric shook his head, "No one is being removed from this house by force especially not someone you value." He set me on my feet and stood, "We should get back to him." I had no desire to return to the awkward discussion or broker a meeting that could be beneficial or could be an unparalleled disaster, but there didn't seem to be any way around it.

**A/N: I know I said I wasn't going to get to post this week, but that was before I found off that my office was closed, but my kids school was open! Ok, so before people get to upset…the ending to this story is already written and its happy. My whole goal in writing these stories is for Eric and Sookie to be happy.**

As always, thanks to everyone that has favorited, reviewed, put on alert etc. I've almost given up on this story a couple of times, so it's always good to know that people are enjoying it.


	12. Chapter 12

We left Eric's office and started to return to the living room, but he was distracted by voices in the kitchen. He paused and looked at me for a moment before letting go of my hand, "You go ahead. I'll follow." I didn't move. It wasn't like I wanted to visit with Niall. So I just kind of stood there wondering about everything that had just happened as he walked into the kitchen to chat with the vampires there. It gave me a moment to process it all. It was way too much to even begin to think about. Putting all the Eric stuff aside for the moment to deal with later there was still Eric's idea that Niall might be able to help Hunter, which was sort of blowing my mind. The idea that maybe Niall could have helped me if I'd been younger when we met was simply unfathomable. My brain thought that might be true, but my heart vehemently rejected the idea that the man that had been so careless with my life could ever help Hunter or me. But then again, Hunter wasn't me. He had a different life with different influences and our gifts weren't exactly the same either. It was worth some more thought. And I didn't have a lot of time to really mull it over. Pretty much I had however long it took me to walk into the living room.

As for the Eric stuff, had I been surprised by his rage at the idea that I could not be turned, no. It was always coming. Eric was not the going gentle into that good night sort. The death issue had always been there lurking in the background. His explosive rage would fade and we'd be able to discuss it. I knew it wasn't rage at me, but more rage at circumstance. I got that. I'd had moments where I had raged at circumstance myself. And Eric, he tended to believe that he could make things work out in his favor. It just plain pissed him off when he couldn't.

Eric walked to the kitchen and I heard him speaking in a low, fast tone. I moved a couple of steps to the right to give me a better view and was surprised to see him talking to Bill. Bill was looking dark and gloomy, but nodding as Eric talked to him. He glanced at me more than once, Bill, not Eric. Eric never looked my way. Bill said a few things to Eric, who responded with an emphatic shake of his head. Then Eric said a few more completely unintelligible things and pointed toward his office, "By all means." That part was said so that humans could actually hear it.

Bill left the kitchen and stomped toward the office, glaring at me as he went past. I didn't know what I'd done, but apparently I was, yet again, on Bill's shit list. Oh well.

Eric returned to me and took my hand in his and tugged me toward the living room and Niall. "Are you going to tell me what that was about?"

Eric smiled, not his nicest smile, "Fact-checking and a few other bits of research. Bill is good with research. He's like one of those geeky computer guys only undead, don't you think? I wonder if there is a need for undead IT staff. Maybe it's a new business line."

I rolled my eyes at him, "Distracting me by insulting Bill?"

Now he gave me a real smile, "It is trying at times having such a clever wife." He indicated toward the sofa like I wasn't certain where I should sit. And I did, sit that is, rather harder than I'd intended yet again distinguishing myself as the least graceful person in the room. I certainly had missed out on the fairy genes that seemed to make them float through the air.

Niall looked back and forth between us, "Everything sorted out then? Can I meet the boy now?"

Eric looked at me and waited. It took me awhile, but eventually I nodded and Eric glanced over his shoulder at Pam, who shot out of the room in search of Hunter. I cleared my throat twice trying to gather enough saliva to actually speak, "There are conditions though."

Niall looked at me with raised eyebrows. I don't know if the raised eyebrows meant that he thought I wasn't in a position to dictate terms or if he just wasn't used to having people tell him what to do. Either way, if he didn't like it he could just pop on back to Fairy land. We didn't need all this extra drama around here anyway; we had plenty of our own. I pressed on with my conditions since everyone seemed to be paying attention, "Remy is Hunter's father. You need to respect his wishes in terms of Hunter. You are not automatically more important because your Fae and he is human."

Niall looked hurt, "You know I do not think like that."

"I know you'll do what it takes to stay in power," I snapped back. "But I don't want you thinking you are just coming in here and taking over. You need to give them a choice and if you aren't…we'll defend their choice." I looked at Eric for confirmation since he would probably be doing more of the actual defending. I can defend myself in a pinch and I do have that unreliable new power, which properly harnessed could probably really help me out in the "protect and defend" category, but no one is going to take a threat from me seriously. And you know what, that's not a bad thing. I don't mind if they don't see me coming.

Niall looked back and forth between us. I felt like he did that a lot looking to make certain we really were united, "I would like to point out that you are simply an obscure relative much the same as I and in no position to be dictating terms of my relationship with Hunter. But, in the interest of keeping peace within our family, I will agree to your stipulations."

Family. Peace within our family. What a joke. Unfortunately, it wasn't one that I found very funny.

And then Pam appeared with Hunter and introductions were made. They spoke for about twenty minutes and I have to say, Niall was good with him. He understood a lot about our power. He told Hunter that he could work with him to strengthen his shields. He told him he could give him a drink that would help make his mind stronger, give him more control. I wish someone had done that for me. To Hunter, I could hear, Niall seemed like the answer to his prayers. Someone who could really help him become stronger. And who was I to take that from him because I thought fairies were cruel and vicious. Or because I felt like Niall had disappointed me. Maybe I've become a cynic, although I try hard not to be, but the way I saw it if Hunter could learn from Niall and gain something from the Fae that had hurt our family so much, he should take whatever he could. I could be his balance, watching them, being mindful of what they were showing him until he was old enough to look out for himself. Besides, Hunter needed some of his prayers answered. He'd had too many go unanswered for a child so young.

I was lost in my own thoughts when Bill came in, handed Eric a piece of paper, and went back out. Eric unfolded the note and then handed it to Niall, "I know you have been enjoying spending time with Hunter, but there may be some other activities worth pursuing tonight..." Niall opened the note and read. "Victor is in the area without notification tonight."

Niall rose, "Let's go." He didn't look so pretty and grandfather-like anymore. He looked like the other side of fairies. The side they didn't like you to see. It made me shudder remembering the last time I had seen fairies that looked like that. I noticed Hunter was a little surprised as well. Good, he should see it upfront. As they say all that glitters and all that.

Eric's fangs popped out, "My thoughts exactly." Well, that was sort of an unexpected turn. One minute we're having some sort of bizarre family reunion and the next my husband and great-grandfather are planning a hunting party, but not the kind that most Louisiana families plan. A part of me wanted to cheer and clap at the idea that Victor was not going to be with us too much longer and a part of me wanted to throw up at the idea of Eric rushing off into danger. I felt as un-modern, is that even a word, as I could ever have imagined myself to be. I felt like his first wife must have felt like this a lot. And I felt sorry for her and glad that she hadn't been around to see him die. The thought caught me off guard and made me realize that he and I had some things to say to one another before he went running off to do battle with his nemesis. How Hollywood of me. Niall pulled out a cell phone, "I'll call Claude and a few others."

"I'll take Pam and Thalia and Maxwell Lee. Bill will stay here with Sookie and Hunter," Eric stated as he rose from the sofa and darted off toward our bedroom leaving me sitting there with Remy and Hunter.

Hunter looked at me. "They're going after that vampire that Niall is so worried about?" He looked uneasy. I understood. I felt uneasy.

I nodded, "Looks that way." I looked at Remy, who had gone several shades paler. "Listen, you don't have to worry about anything. I'll make up a bedroom in the main house tonight, but otherwise, it's just a normal night." And then I looked at Hunter, "We'll make popcorn and we can watch a movie."

Hunter looked eager, "Can it be something with vampires in it?" I sighed. Apparently, there was no way to make an easy transition into the supernatural world even with all kinds of guidance. And I gave the response of tired parents everywhere, "We'll see."

Remy smiled weakly at me over Hunter's head and oddly we felt like a team for the first time since I'd knocked on his window. I held Remy's eyes for a moment and said, "I need to talk to Eric." He nodded and I was out of my seat so fast you would have thought I was a vampire.

Eric was in the basement in a backroom that was intended for a wine cellar. It wasn't anything huge or luxurious, but we didn't drink wine, so Eric used it for weapons. He was arming himself with an air that could only be described as gleeful. I leaned against the doorframe watching him. He was beautiful with his long athletic body; he was also terrifying armed to the teeth and with teeth that were weapons in and of themselves. And he belonged in my life. And I belonged in his. We were not separate entities anymore even if I wanted to strangle him sometimes, not that it would do any good. He turned and looked at me, looking at him, but he didn't speak.

"We're not going to talk about this? Before you rush off to do battle or whatever you call it," I figured I might as well just dive-in. I've learned that if you are going to have an argument while a battle is brewing you need to jump right in, no beating around the bush. There isn't time. Kind of scary that I knew that.

His eyes just held mine, no facial expression whatsoever, "This is vampire business. You are not interested in vampire business."

I rolled my eyes at him, "I think this is family business that involves a vampire. And although it really chaps my ass that our family business sometimes involves killing stuff…well…its still family business."

He quirked an eyebrow at me, "You'd sound like Michael Corleone if you'd left out the part about chapping your ass. Which is completely untrue, by the way, I saw it earlier and as always your ass is divine."

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and quirked an eyebrow back at him. "Avoidance and deflection will not get you out of this discussion," I replied sternly. "But nice try."

His eyebrow dropped and he looked genuinely confused that I would ask that of him, "Should I not go after Victor?" That wasn't what I was saying. I would never ask that of him. In fact, my thoughts on the Victor subject were closer to "rip his throat out for me" than no stay where it's safe.

I uncrossed my arms and walked to him. Wrapping my arms around his waist and snuggling into his chest I murmured against him, "Of course you should, but not without talking to me about it. And not with everything hanging like it was with you all upset about my not being a vampire. What if something happened and we never got to…" I didn't know exactly the word I was looking for, but that little one-on-one in his office was not what I wanted as our last exchange if the unthinkable happened.

I felt his lips brush the top of my head and he said softly into my hair, "You will have to forgive that outburst. Truly, I don't need you to be a vampire. I just want you with me for a very long time. Forever. And to hear that it wasn't going to happen and from Niall…"

I nodded against him, "We'll just have to see what comes. I'm not saying I want to be a vampire, but I am yours, always, no matter what else I may be, I'm yours." I looked up at him, "Don't get killed okay. We won't have long together if you get killed."

He grinned down at me, "Victor kill me? Never going to happen." And he lowered his lips to mine. Victor was a dead man, well an even deader dead man than he already was.

Sorry it has been so long since my last update. And I have good news and bad news on the update front. There are maybe three or four chapters left to this and they're all outlined, but only the final chapter is written. I want the end to have some continuity though, so it will probably be about two weeks until I post again, but when I do I'll post every day until its done.

Hope you are enjoying it so far and thanks for all the fantastic feedback! Things have been extremely stressful at work and these stories have been a great source of stress relief!


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: As always, if you have reviewed, alerted, favorited or even just stuck with it, thank you!

I was sitting by myself in the living room staring at a book. I did that sometimes when I didn't know what else to do. It gave me the illusion of doing something, I was reading, when in reality I was just sitting there stressing out. Things were moving all around me, but I couldn't do anything at all except worry, which is one of the least productive emotions out there. Not wanting to drive myself insane, and I could actually feel the stress throbbing away in my brain, I had picked up a book and tried valiantly to focus on something other than the fact that Eric and Pam, who I loved more than anything in this world, and Niall and Claude, who I was related to anyway, were going off to kill the bad guy and I was going to sit at home and read a book. Or watch over Hunter and Remy, as Eric had pointed out trying to put a positive spin on things, not that we didn't both know that was exactly what it was…spin. I flipped a page of my book irritably with no idea what I had just read.

"You don't want to rip it," I heard from the doorway as Niall glided into the room and sank into a chair with that amazing supernatural grace that I so envied. I stared at him for a moment wondering what he could possibly want from me, but he didn't say anything. He just looked at me; his gaze was inquisitive, almost searching. Finally he spoke, "Do you truly hate me? It was not what I wanted."

Slowly, I moved my bookmark to hold my place and shut the book. It was a deliberate action intended to give me a few seconds to respond. And finally, I was able to wrap my head around the right words, "It isn't what I wanted either. But you wanted everything. You wanted power and you wanted to know your family – or at least the powerful ones because lord knows you didn't care much about Jason. But it can't be that way for me. The only way to keep myself safe is to be with people that I know will put me before their other needs."

He smiled slightly, "And you feel that Eric does this?"

I frowned at him, "I feel he tries and that he does it when it counts. I feel that he is not perfect, but he wants to be the husband I need and most of the time, he gets it right. I don't think I can ask for more. But you're a different story and you've really done nothing to make me feel like you've stopped putting power first."

Niall leaned back against the sofa and crossed one leg over the other. We might have been discussing the roses in the garden, "So why allow Hunter to spend time with me?"

I shrugged, "Maybe you'll do better this time. And Hunter has me watching to make certain you do or protect him if you don't. I didn't have that."

Niall sat up again, "Well, then I suppose I should thank you for forgiving me enough to let me get to know Hunter and help him."

I opened my book again, "I can teach him good judgment – or good human judgment - you just worry about the fairy stuff. The stuff that will help him deal with telepathy and any other powers he might develop." Sometimes I really worried about our genetic makeup and I didn't think there was genetic testing available for anything that might be going on inside me or Hunter.

He stood and crossed to me, giving me a soft kiss on the forehead. And although a part of me was repelled by the contact, there was another part that still felt myself longing for that loving, traditional family that I had always pictured in my head. "Thank you," he repeated. "And if you ever have need of me beyond this night…"

I shook my head firmly, "I don't think so. This is all I want, what I have here in this house."

Niall opened his mouth and closed it again as if he were about to say something and then he simply smiled, "If this is what makes you happy. This is what you should have."

I nodded and he glided out of the room. It was a weird conversation and I didn't know what to make of it. In thinking back on it, the day Eric brought me to that damn restaurant might have been the worst day of my life and I've had some pretty bad days. He turned to look at me from the foyer. I felt his gaze on me and looked up. "I wanted to know you because of the person that you are. You tried so hard and meant so well and were so very brave in the face of so much. I thought you were a human worth knowing. And I was correct in my belief. You have great worth even without any powers. I am sorry that we have shown you nothing that would make you wish to know us."

I thought about Claudine and felt really guilty. She had never shown me anything but love and Niall had sent her to me. And he had come for me that awful night. And she had given her life for me. I didn't trust Niall, but he had tried to love me. Maybe it was just so different from the love that my human brain expected I couldn't recognize it. But it was unfair to say that I thought they weren't worth knowing. I swallowed down the lump in my throat and choked out, "That's not true. You gave me Claudine. Maybe that's why I'm giving you a chance with Hunter. Maybe we'll try to get to know each other again too."

He nodded slowly, "Perhaps." And then he drifted away presumably in search of Eric and some sort of battle planning session. And I retuned to my book.

It proved to not be my night to read, however, because not five minutes later Bill came gliding in and lowered himself onto the couch opposite me. Again, I marked my place in my book and looked up with a patience that was really beginning to fray. "Bill," I said hoping my voice wasn't betraying all the stress I felt.

"I am to stay with you," he said evenly. "Protect you."

Huh, interesting choice considering everything. But I suppose in a way I was still more comfortable with Bill than anyone else, Eric and Pam excepted, of course. I nodded, "Okay."

Bill looked about the living room, "It's very nice in here." He sounded stiff like he was searching around for topics. I looked at the room disinterested. Pam had done this one. I didn't see the need for a formal living room. My grandmother had always wanted one because she said it was a room where you could always receive guests because you always knew it was in immaculate condition – not that her whole house hadn't always been guest-ready – but Eric and I didn't have children and houses with just two working adults stay pretty clean. There wasn't really a need for a guest-ready room. Especially since the only person that ever came over, well until tonight anyway, was Pam.

"Thank you. I'll tell Pam you like it," I smiled brightly so he wouldn't think I was being sarcastic. I was proud of my home even if it was unnecessarily large for two people. I smiled again, but wasn't really certain what to say, I mean what did he want?

Bill smiled as well, he looked out of practice doing it. "I've been reflecting on the small decisions that make up a life." Okay…I made a noise to indicate that I was interested in what he was saying because I was…or maybe I was I didn't really know what he was saying. "If I had gone to your house that night – the night Eric took you – how differently things might have turned out. I had thought to go, but I was so ill."

I nodded, but still said nothing. I didn't know what to say. I had reflected on it myself. How would things have turned out if Eric hadn't pulled me out of that window because Victor and De Castro were coming to visit? I couldn't even begin to imagine. How would I have healed? What would I have been like? Would Eric and I be married now? What would have happened with Hunter? Would I have stayed in touch with Claude, Niall? But really, beyond an interesting exercise in what if, did it matter?

"Perhaps," Bill stated looking at the ceiling now and not at me. "It was for the best. Although I never felt that before. Now that I meet these relatives of yours and see the other worlds you were being brought into…perhaps it was for the best." Wait, were we actually becoming okay? Was Bill accepting me? Eric and I? This was a heck of a weird night. "I may not care much for Eric, but perhaps it gave you an opportunity to become more than you were." Gee, thanks Bill. It wasn't that he was wrong. I am more than I was, but ouch.

I heard a snort from the foyer and saw Eric leaning against the doorframe. "I'm sure she is as pleased by your acceptance of the situation as I am hurt to hear you don't like me."

Bill looked at Eric and I have to say, I think if he could have, he would have blushed. He stood, nodded at Eric and was gone before Eric could say "get the hell out," which was very clearly the next thing coming out of his mouth. But since Bill left without being asked, he just sauntered on in and sprawled out next to me on the sofa, which was sort of formal for sprawling. We had a family room for sprawling this was more of a sit up straight and drink your tea kind of room.

"We're leaving soon," he said. "I just wanted to say good-bye," and he leaned over and kissed me. And oh my what a kiss it was. I had just kissed him a few minutes before, I kissed him all the time, but this felt different. It felt amazing. It felt intense. It felt really surprising that after one kiss he pulled away and brushed a strand of hair from my face, "I will see you later." It was a promise.

He stood and started to leave, but I reached out and grabbed his hand, "This is going to seem like its totally from left field, but why did you take me that night and run away?" He looked down at me with a like that was unrecognizable to me and I could feel a mix of emotions coming through the bond so quickly I couldn't get a strong read on any of them – fear, love, lust, fear again, anger, uncertainty, more love. He opened his mouth and then shut it again. Thought a little bit more and finally said softly, "I don't really know. I could tell you that I loved you and I suppose at the time I thought I did. Now, I realize I knew nothing about how it would be. What being with you would mean. I had not loved in so long, I realize now, I barely knew how to. I don't even know that love is the reason I took you. You were mine and you were hurt. You needed to be protected. And I could not do so from that location – you in that house, me in Shreveport with so many overseeing my every action." I stared at his face as he gave me this very real explanation that I had never received before, never even asked for.

He was looking at my face and said softly, "You know I never planned to stay away so long. At first I just thought I would heal you and then we would return, but you did not heal…not all the way and I could feel it. You healed physically, but the rest of you…you're heart, which is the best part of you…it did not heal. Then I thought it would be better to leave you somewhere away from all we had brought on you, but I couldn't leave. I tried several times. And so I stayed, and then three years had gone by and I have never regretted it. These have been the best four years of all of them."

I squeezed his hand, "I've never regretted it either. I'm glad I went with you. And I'm glad I never thought about coming back…you know, until we did."

He smiled and squeezed my hand gently in return and then he was gone. Pam stuck her head in as she followed him out, "There are Weres guarding the perimeter, yada, yada, yada…you know the drill. Alcide came himself, he must still have a thing for you. I will be sure to tease Eric about it as we drive around visiting death on our enemies."

I mock saluted her and heard her laughing as she slipped out into the night.

A/N: Again, sorry for the delay between chapters, but the last two (maybe three chapters should go up later this week). Getting this chapter up was my birthday present to myself. I made my poor husband take three kids, who are already jumping out of their skin because of Halloween, take three kids to the grocery store to buy more candy so I could post this chapter. Because its my birthday and I feel entitled to make unreasonable demands. Unfortunately, it's not a very Halloween-esque chapter…oh well.


	14. Chapter 14

I went upstairs to change mostly just looking for something else to do. I looked around the bedroom and decided that the whole house could probably use a good cleaning, which was crazy because we had someone that came in twice a week. But cleaning is the kind of activity that you can throw your whole body into and it consumes you, yet if you were raised like me, you don't even have to think about it. It's like muscle memory, your body just takes over and you clean. Sweatpants and an old t-shirt later and I was attacking the bathroom with a bucket and environmentally-friendly cleaning products. The water was running and that's why I didn't hear the doorbell. And why I felt no sense of dread or panic until I glanced up into the mirror and saw Victor Madden's smiling face entering my bathroom. Before the scream could even leave my throat there was searing pain and then everything went black.

When I awoke I panicked. Full-out massive panic attack. Was I a vampire? Was I Victor's vampire? In a second, my logic and my body's reaction managed to fight its way through my terror and I registered that my heart was indeed beating. In fact, it was beating so fast that if it didn't slow down Victor wasn't going to have the chance to kill me I was going to die of natural causes.

I screamed, just in case there was someone to hear me and despite my mouth being duct-taped, until my voice felt raw. Victor just smiled from across the room and waited for me to finish. Finally, I gave up and let a few silent tears leak from my eyes before flipping him off, a bit of a trick since my hands were bound too. He chuckled at my middle finger waving in the air in defiance of my tightly bound wrists. It really lacked any kind of impact, but I felt better for having done it. "Good evening to you too, Miss Stackhouse. It smells lovely in here. Either you have some very unique potpourri or you've had lots of tasty guests here tonight. How lucky Eric is"

Despite the tape, I told him to fuck off and asked how he got in. Ignoring the Eric comments, I didn't want to talk about Eric with Victor. It felt wrong. Either Victor was pretty good at interpreting people with duct tape over their mouths – which is possible I'm certain this was not his first experience with it - or he just figured I'd ask because he answered my question. "One of Alcide's Weres is working against him." Then he made an annoying tsk-ing sound that I really didn't appreciate. And then he picked up a syringe. "We'll move you and the boy shortly. Can't risk Eric coming home…" He plunged the needle into my skin and I tried hard not to cry out although he was anything but gentle. It was a pride issue. He wasn't going to get to enjoy my terror or pain any more than absolutely necessary.

"Good night Miss Stackhouse. See you tomorrow." I don't know what he gave me but I could feel myself getting woozy almost immediately. Not exactly fall asleep woozy, but definitely unable to focus or follow any train of logical thought. I tried to focus on Eric, begging him to get to me. I didn't think Victor's plan for me had changed since last year and I didn't want to be his creature.

It was hard to keep that energy up, I felt so calm. Calmer and calmer as Bruno Bazell lifted me and began to carry me down my hallway toward impending doom and I couldn't even move a muscle. Victor followed behind smiling at me whenever I would look at him. I hated him. Or I would have if I'd had the energy, but feelings that intense were pretty hard to muster right now.

Bruno carried me down the stairs and into the foyer, which was awash with Were body parts and a boatload of blood. Despite my calm, panic rushed back in when I saw Bill lying on the floor no arms and only one leg and I screamed once more against the duct tape and writhed in Bruno's grip desperate to get away. I felt the rumbling in Bruno's chest as he chuckled deeply at my distress. Victor glanced at Bill, "Yes, we're leaving him for Eric. I can only imagine the ways he'll take out his rage on Bill. I wish I could be there to see it, but c'est la vie." Did he seriously just say that?

Somewhere in my head I thought indignantly that Eric wasn't like that, but I was way to drugged to bring the words to the surface and even if I could have, I wasn't entirely sure that Eric wouldn't kill Bill for losing me. He might. He might feel bad about it later, but then again, he might not. I wasn't going to vouch for his mental state if I was kidnapped by Victor. My sense was that Shreveport and Louisiana in general might have a supernatural killing spree on its hands. I know that would be my reaction if Victor took Eric from me.

Lying not too far from Bill was Remy. He was gone. I hoped Hunter hadn't seen it. I looked around for Hunter, but didn't see him. Victor noticed my eyes franticly searching the room, "The boy is already in the van. He is unharmed." Yeah, sure he was. If having your father brutally murdered by vampires to get to you could leave you unharmed. Somehow I didn't think it could. I knew I'd never forget this sight assuming I survived long enough for it to even be an option. I stared at Bill who looked back at me with such regret and pain that I would have looked away if I'd had the energy to turn my head. But I had plenty of energy to hate. It was practically burning me up inside. I tried to think how I would survive this to kill Victor Madden, but my brain felt so foggy I couldn't form an actual plan just emotions.

My vague, cotton-wrapped hatred was interrupted when Bruno Bazell walked into a brick wall or maybe a train rocketed through my living room and hit him, I mean us. Because there was pain, a lot of it, as something hit us and he grabbed me much more tightly than a vampire should grab a human. He definitely broke my arm and maybe did something in my hip as he grabbed me in a vice-like grip as whatever hit us sent us flying across the room. Bruno slammed into the wall and I slammed into him. My entire side would be black and blue if my ribs weren't broken. Something silky and silvery draped across my face as I became coated in Bruno's blood. Oh, it was Pam that hit us.

My eyes cut around the room looking for Eric as I tried to scramble away from the brief fight between Pam and Bruno. He had lost somewhere around the time that I was coated in blood. But I found that one of my legs wasn't really working too well and the pain in my side was giving me a lot of trouble. Also, whatever Victor had given me made me weak, really weak.

As I crawled I searched for Eric. And he was there, pulling his sword from a Were as he held Corrina by the throat a foot off the ground. I was mildly disgusted when he grabbed her on either side of the head and pulled, severing her head with his hands. Gross. Impressive, but nasty. Not that I would say I was sorry that she was dead. In fact, I would have shouted woo-hoo and pumped my fist if I'd had the energy, but right now, surviving was taking it all up. Eric would have to survive with a mental pat on the back, not that I thought he would care. Stay alive was the only vibe he was sending me and I was hearing it loud and clear. It was my only goal. I thought maybe he would get to me once Corrina was dealt with but several of Victor's minions that I didn't know were on him as quickly as Corrina dissolved in his hands.

I sensed a vampire and saw that Pam was standing above me growling as I lay a few feet away from what was left of Bruno. Since it was clear that I wasn't actually going to be able to stand with whatever Bruno had done to my hip, I did my best to curl underneath her, protecting myself. But Victor's Were rocketed into Pam from the side and they went tumbling across the foyer.

In the split second that she was gone, Victor pounced. I screamed as his fangs sank into my neck. It's funny how vampire bites can feel so different – amazingly sensual or incredibly painful. This was just incredibly painful and he was draining me fast. I smacked at him and tried to pull away aware that I was ripping my neck open even further. And then I saw Eric above him. Actually, I didn't even see him as more sensed he was there. What I saw was the blade of his sword stopping millimeters from my chest as he severed Victor's head.

Eric was on his knees beside me a moment later, ripping the tape from my mouth in a quick and extremely painful motion. You would think that wouldn't have hurt considering everything else that had happened in the last thirty minutes, but it did. He didn't waste a second on pleasantries but went straight for my neck licking the wound. "You made it," I whispered. The last thing I saw before passing out was Eric looking at my neck with a grim expression and slicing open his wrist with a knife to place a bloody palm on the wound. He smiled at me bravely and said, "Everything will be alright." And then everything went black.

I came to just a few moments later with Pam standing above me, her wrist bleeding. Eric was pushing her arm back away from my mouth. "She'll turn," he stated tersely. "She's lost too much."

"She'll live," Pam sounded practically frantic. I didn't like the frantic note in her voice. Or the way Eric frowned at her.

Eric shook his head, "I would never turn her without her choosing it." That didn't sound promising. The fact that I needed to make the choice that I'd always hoped to avoid – die or be a vampire. I had never really wanted to pick between those two options. He shoved Pam's arm away roughly and lifted my head gently into his lap. He leaned back on his arms and stretched his legs out in front of him as if we were out for a picnic, a moonlight picnic I suppose. He smiled down at me, "You're back with us."

I didn't respond. I wasn't really. I knew I'd lost a lot of blood. I knew I wasn't going to be "with them" much longer without some sort of solution. Eric was holding out his hand to Pam who had left briefly and returned with armfuls of TrueBlood. I made a face as he opened one of them and brought it toward me. I heard Pam whisper in Eric's ear, "De Castro called for you. He wants to talk to you." Eric shook his head waving her away as he continued to smile at me saying, "Not now Pam." And then in the voice you might use with a child that didn't want to take her medicine he said to me, "It's not so bad."

"You don't drink it," I replied or at least tried to. It came out more like, "Yu..don…dri...it…" And even that was so hoarse it was barely understandable. I touched my neck still expecting to find deep gashes, but he had healed them. He raised me slowly to a sitting position carefully supporting me and brought the TrueBlood to my lips. As I began to drink I met Niall's eyes – when had he come in? Maybe while I was being attacked…that tends to be distracting and I suppose I didn't notice. But, when he came in didn't matter, what mattered was that I saw something in his look and I just knew. I pushed the bottle away and raised my arm trying to point, "He can…fix…"

Eric followed my eyes and locked onto Niall. He continued to pour the bottle of vile liquid down my throat and only when it was finished he lifted me as he stood, "You can fix her." He didn't ask. He knew that I knew and I did. I just don't know how. Niall nodded once. And then said slowly, "She will not…she will be different. Not exactly as she is now."

Eric glared at him, "She'll survive." Really it was a question, but it sounded a lot like an order. But I could tell, he was just being Eric and brazening his way through a bad situation. He didn't know if I was going to make it and he was scared to death. Oddly, I felt divorced from the whole situation. Maybe that was the drugs or the blood loss, but I didn't feel afraid.

Niall nodded and Eric began to walk up the stairs, "That is all that is important. Come." And we went to our bedroom with Niall.

Eric laid me gently on our bed. Pam surprised me by following with pillows and placing a blanket over me and then a few more. When she went for a fourth blanket and fluffing the pillow Eric snapped at her to stop. She sank down on the bed next to me so delicately that I thought she must be afraid to jostle me, which made a lot of sense because now that some of the shock was wearing off I was acutely aware that I had several broken bones. I gave her a weak smile, which she did not return. She just stared at me as if she was afraid too extreme an expression might break me. Wow, I must really look like hell.

"How?" Eric said to Niall. My great-grandfather shrugged, "Basically, it is a transfusion. It's simple enough. She needs blood. I can heal her now. She won't make it to a hospital and…it will…her life span will change. You will have more time. The rest of her injuries you will need to deal with, but I can do this. The TrueBlood…she needs more than that."

Eric seemed to go unnaturally still so it looked a little odd when he nodded his head. I guess he knew that TrueBlood wasn't going to do it this time. But Pam snapped, "We would need equipment, we can't just transfuse her."

Niall shrugged again for my kind he seemed pretty unconcerned with the outcome or maybe he just wasn't certain about the course he wanted to take, "There is a spell. The spark in her will call to the Fae blood. It will want to unite with her."

Pam rolled her eyes, "You fairies are so fucking weird. What does that even mean?" She glanced at Eric as if making certain she hadn't overstepped her bounds, but from the look on his face, he was in total agreement. Weird ass fairies.

"Who cares what it means?" He sighed after a moment. "If Sookie wants it, do it."

Niall came to the bed and took his hand in mine, "You will change slightly. You will be more Fae. More at one with nature. Your powers may increase. Your lifetime will increase exponentially – I don't know how long. Your scent will change." He glanced at Eric, who responded irritably, "I'll be fine. And if I'm not you'll teach her how to mask it." He glared at Niall again as if this was all Niall's fault, and who knew maybe it was. I couldn't contemplate the intricacies of "what if" right now. "You'll teach her what she needs to know or I'll kill every last one of you," Eric stated. Well, that certainly made his feelings clear. He also sounded a little ungrateful considering Niall was already helping me, but…oh well. Niall cocked an eyebrow at him, but to his credit, let it go.

I tugged on Eric's hand and whispered, "Hunter?" Eric kissed my forehead, "He's safe. Bill's being fed. You have no one to worry about but you. Please, worry about you."

Eric sat on the other side of me and his tone changed to teasing, "Do you think your ears will get pointy?" He grinned at me and kissed the top of my ear, "Because that would be sexy." I rolled my eyes or I meant to. I don't know if I actually did.

At the same time, Niall began chanting. Maybe that's why Eric chose that moment to tease me, he knew what Niall was about to do or maybe it was just good timing because as soon as the teasing words left Eric's mouth, Niall slit my palm with a large knife and then his own. He pressed them together and kept chanting. It burned like hell and our hands began to glow. And then the rest of me. I looked at Eric, who smiled at me…although I thought he looked kind of nervous probably it was the glowing, "Let go Sookie. Look at me and let go." And I looked into his too blue eyes and I did. I let go. I felt trust and certainty and love. I felt security and I felt happy. Whatever happened after this moment, it would work out. Our marriage might not be perfect, but we were each others and we would make it work. Even if I was mostly fairy.

_**A/N: As always thanks to everyone that has read, reviewed and all that. And mostly has stuck with this story since I have been such a slacker about updates. **_


	15. Chapter 15

_**A/N: You all inspired me to finish up! Thanks for reading. **_

_**And of course, I don't own any of the characters. Haven't put that up here in a couple chapters.**_

I awoke slightly before dawn. I felt great. I felt tingly. I think I felt slightly high, but I wouldn't really know. Pam sat in an armchair in downtime. Eric sat on the end of the bed not in downtime, staring at me. Hunter was curled next to me his face grimy with tears. I touched his head gently and sighed in frustration at my inability to protect him from the very type of pain I had longed to prevent. It had all happened anyway. Just as it had once happened to me. I hoped Hunter could find away to get through it all. I often wondered how the heck I had.

From the foot of the bed Eric said, "It's not the same as it was before. He knows he can trust you. He knows he has you. You are not his father and your love…it means nothing today or tomorrow, but eventually…"

"Eventually, I'll be his version of Gran," I said softly still not looking at Eric. "Do you think he can recover from this?" I touched Hunter's face lightly and he stirred in his sleep. I wanted Eric to say yes, but knew he wouldn't.

Eric shook his head, "I don't know lover, but I know you will help him try."

I nodded. I would, of course I would. I would give it everything in me. I felt like I could because despite all the tragedy of tonight, I felt powerful. I felt alive and I wanted Hunter to feel that way too. I probably had a lot to worry about. I had a child to care for. I had a great-grandfather that had done something dangerous for me. Something that could cause enormous problems in his own realm, but I didn't feel frightened. I looked at Eric. We would get through it together. I took a deep breath and looked him in the eye now. I had something I really needed to know, "I know it's not important in comparison to everything else but how do I look? The same? What about my ears?"

He smiled and slid up the bed toward me encircling me in his arms holding me close to his body, "Perfect."

I grinned into his chest and then turned my face up to him, "That doesn't tell me anything."

"It tells you that you're ears are perfect to me even if they look like that flying elephant from the movies, which they do not."

My hand instinctively flew to my ears to make certain I wasn't suddenly sporting gigantic Dumbo ears. They hadn't changed. I nudged him in the stomach with my shoulder and muttered, "Not nice." He chuckled. And then turning to more serious matters I asked, "Do you think I can do things? Like superpower fairy things?"

He shrugged, "I don't care. But we'll figure it out if you can." Interesting response. No hint of what my being able to do things could do for him.

I smiled against him, but made no comment as too how much his response pleased me. He'd made me feel better with that one comment; he didn't care what I was as long as I was me, "You really don't care?"

He smiled down at me and kissed my forehead, "I care only as much as you do. You know what I care about?"

"What?" I laughed. It didn't seem like this night would have brought anything to laugh about, but somehow his tone made me feel amazing even better than not having giant Dumbo ears.

"I care about taking you away from here and showing you that I don't care if you are a fairy or a vampire or a human or something in between. You are my wife before all of that." I reached for him and kissed him hard. My mouth opened beneath his and I felt fire shoot through me. "One thing I will say," he muttered against my mouth. "You smell unbelievable." My hands reached up into his hair and I yanked him down closer wanting him as close as possible. Pam cleared her throat loudly from the corner.

"Please," she grumbled. "Your children are present. And one of them is an actual child." I looked at Hunter. What a life for him. My fairy high faded at the thought of him waking and the road he would face. I knew it all too well. Eric stroked my hair, "We'll do the best we can for him, Sookie. You'll take good care of him." I wasn't certain that I would, but I knew I would try. "Is Niall still here?"

Eric nodded, "Claude is gone and he had only one other with him. The other one was killed; I did not know his name. But Niall stayed until you woke. Would you like to see him?"

I nodded and Eric jerked his head toward the door. Pam rose from her spot in the corner and zipped out of the room. She was back less than a minute later with Niall. I didn't think fairies could move fast, which was too bad because I'd always thought it would be handy. Maybe I could pop? I doubted it. And in a way I think I hoped maybe I couldn't. That was way too "not human" for me. I had no idea what my feelings were on being less human than I already had been. Probably they weren't that positive, but one thing I know about myself I'll always opt for alive over dead. I wasn't really interested in noble sacrifice. I'd rather be slightly less human and a lot more alive than completely human and really dead.

Niall came to stand by my bed. He didn't say anything so I said, "Thank you." What more was there to say when someone saved your life. He nodded, "I could not…I am pleased I could help you."

That was nice that he was pleased. I was pretty pleased myself, "Won't it be bad for you? What will everyone say? The ones that are so worried about purity – I guess the ones that are worried about their relatives would be okay with it?" But who knew with fairies. I found their politics as baffling as vampire politics.

Niall shrugged, "I don't plan to have them find out. Claude has asked to serve as Hunter's guardian as Claudine served as yours. I have granted this to him. He will teach Hunter the things that I cannot, not now that I have done this for you. But you Sookie…"

I looked at him and knew this was the end of the line for me and my great-grandfather, which was sort of odd since he'd just, made me more fairy. Still, our story was done. I knew it and so did he. He smiled slightly and grabbed a book off my nightstand, "Put it on the dresser."

I looked at him for a moment not fully understanding. My bones had been broken and although Eric had healed them…still it had been a long night for me. I'd lost copious amounts of blood and been made less human tonight, why did I have to get out of bed and put a book on the dresser? And then I got it. I thought about the book and it floated easily out of Niall's hand and smoothly across the room to the dresser landing gently in the perfect spot. "See," Niall smiled. "You do not need me."

It made me feel sad that power was what it still came down to in the end, "That wasn't what I needed you for."

He looked back at me, "I'm afraid it's all I am able to give you. It was not what I wanted, but it is how things are."

And I understood that. I didn't agree with it, but I knew he had nothing else for me. I nodded, "Bye Niall."

He leaned over and kissed my forehead, "Goodbye my child. I am sorry for the pain I have caused you." He turned away from me and looked at Eric, "We are telling people that she has been gravely injured and is unlikely to survive. Only Claude and I will know the truth. I'll trust you to help keep the secret. Obviously, eventually people will find out that she did not die, but they may not guess the truth." I guess that meant no running around bragging that his wife tasted better than any of the other wives.

Eric nodded, "Thank you. Vampire will be able to tell, but we'll figure it out. Claude perhaps can teach her how to mask her scent?" Niall nodded. He looked at me one more time and then he was gone.

I looked at Hunter, who had just lost another person without knowing it. Although I suppose he'd gained Claude and if Claudine was any indication, he'd make a good guardian. I touched his hair lightly for what felt like the tenth time since I'd woken up. Wishing he could stay asleep until the pain was less raw or he was older, but it wouldn't happen. I looked up at Eric and wiped a couple of tears away. I didn't want to waste a lot of tears on Niall. I'd already cried a lot in my life. And once Hunter woke, I knew there would be a lot more tears to shed. Eric watched me, "I could glamour him to make the pain less, but…"

I thought about it. What was the right thing to do I just didn't know. It seemed wrong to allow him an escape from the pain, a false experience, but he was just a child. "Let's just take it as it comes," I said uncertainly. "I suppose we have a pretty loving home and that should help him, right?"

Pam made a noise that sounded suspiciously like gagging, "Do you ever get tired of making yourself a giant target? You better never say anything like that outside this room. You're already a vampire's half-fairy wife – or whatever you are now – if you make Eric sound weak you might as well stand on a dark corner and yell drain me. They'll come out of the woodwork. A vampire with a loving home…whoever heard of such a thing."

Eric glared at Pam, but didn't deny it. Even I couldn't deny it. I knew the deal. Supernaturals had their own set of rules and now I was one of them, supernatural that is not a rule. Apparently, I continued to be law unto myself. I looked at Eric and thought of Bill telling me that the older Eric got the more he became set on his own way. Maybe that's why we worked so well…we defied the categories and belonged only to each other and the small family gathered in this room. Maybe my blood was a little different now, but we were the same us, and that was all that mattered. "I don't think I'm going to be spending time around many vampires other than the ones in this room. I'll be Eric's aloof and unseen wife...say what you want. Let the stories run rampant. At least until I get a little stronger with my powers or can mask my scent better at least. We have awhile to figure it out. This will work for now."

Pam grinned, "We can come up with all sorts of wild tales of your exploits no one will know what is true and what is not. You'll become a part of Eric's mystique…I love it. I'll be in charge of that. I'll be marvelous at it. We can tell everyone different stories about your telepathic powers. And we'll downplay the whole fairy thing. Everyone thought Victor went a little off the deep end with that whole thing anyway – seeing half and quarter fairies everywhere. Perhaps we'll weave Hunter in somehow."

"No, Pam. Hunter should never be mentioned," Eric's tone was hard and flat. He stroked my hair soothing me before I even had a chance to be upset, which I wasn't really – I mean I would have been if she'd actually included Hunter in the stories – but taking it too far was just part of Pam and then in a very different tone he continued, "Speaking of my ever-increasing legend…"

Pam cocked an eyebrow at him, "Did I say legend? I don't remember saying legend."

"Hush Pam, you'll wake the child," he said continuing his own train of thought. "Lover, we need to discuss something. While you slept De Castro called with a proposition…"


	16. Chapter 16

Epilogue – Bill's Tale

I maneuvered my wheelchair down the narrow hallway at Fangtasia and into the main bar area. My main bar area. I could not believe that I now owned this bar. Or that I had been made Sheriff in my weakened state. Thalia had been made my protector. She sat at the end of the bar now flipping through a magazine. She didn't look at me.

I know that the very idea of a vampire in a wheelchair had appalled Thalia. It had been Sookie's idea. The wheelchair, not the Sheriff part. Everyone had been stumped as to what to do about a vampire – a proposed Sheriff with no legs. In the past, injured vampires hid, we couldn't have people see us re-growing limbs after all. But things had changed. Sookie could not seem to understand the conundrum and had said to Eric, "Just get him a wheelchair. Remember Spike." Eric had roared with laughter when she said this. I did not see what was funny. I had never heard of this Spike person and despite searching my database numerous times I had found no trace of him. I mentioned this to Eric and thought he might keel over laughing, apparently I could only dream.

I heard the door open and turned to tell whatever entitled, aggressive human that had decided that the closed sign did not apply to them to get out, and saw Eric standing in the doorway. If I had thought it possible, I would have said he looked sad. He caught Thalia's eye and jerked his head to the side. She went rocketing out the door without even a look in my direction. It irked me, as I was now supposed to be her superior, but what could I say, he was still my superior. I'd speak to her later when he was gone. 'Did you need me?" I asked.

He glanced at me for a moment and then without responding, continued looking around the room. He walked slowly to a table against the far wall. It was not the booth he normally preferred for business. Just one of the two-tops. He placed his hand on the table as if it could show him something. He stared at it for a while. I was about to head back to the office since there was no reason for me to sit around watching him look at a table when he said, "I know you don't see yourself as a bar owner, but it's a good base business for a Sheriff."

I nodded. I did not see myself as a bar owner. It seemed an embarrassingly low-class business and in my day had been the profession of ruffians and scalawags, but I could hardly ignore Eric's advice on being a Sheriff. He had been an excellent Sheriff and having gone over the books at Fangtasia I could not deny that the bar might be classless, but it was certainly profitable. I could only hope I would be as effective both as a Sheriff and a barkeep (since that was to be my lot in life), "If I haven't said it already thank you for choosing me and putting so much support behind it." I knew there were those that did not believe I could do the job in my current condition, but Eric had made it clear I had his full support. It had made the difference.

He glanced at me almost as if he couldn't understand what I was talking about, "You'll do fine. Perhaps not right away, but you'll grow into the job." I didn't know how to respond to that so I said nothing. Not that it mattered because he was back staring at the table again having completely forgotten that I was there or at least that was what I thought. He traced his fingertips over the table, "I was sitting here with Pam when you brought her in for the first time."

At first, I wasn't certain what he was talking about and then I remembered, of course, that was where he had been sitting with Pam the night I came in with Sookie. I sat in my chair uncomfortable to be part of his stroll down memory lane, not that Eric seemed to notice. He was lost in thoughts that were completely his own. Finally, when I could stand it no longer I blurted out, "She is well?" I didn't care much I just needed something to say. I had decided after this last injury that Sookie and I could clearly bring each other nothing but pain and it was time to move on. And I found that the decision was sticking with me though Sookie visited and clucked over my injuries, I did not truly wish her back, especially now that she was mothering a child.

He shrugged, "She is adjusting." I wracked my brain to determine what it was that she would need to adjust to – smelling better – whereas I had been injured defending Sookie yet again. And then I remembered that she was now parent to a rather damaged child and had always longed to remain human for reasons I could hardly fathom, it was not as though her human life had been such bliss. Still, I suppose both of those things required adjustment. "She is anxious to move," Eric continued and then trailed off again.

"Well, we all have adjustments that we have to make in life and I am certain that she is better off now –" I stopped as I heard Eric's fangs pop.

He was towering over me for a moment and then leaned in close, "No one asked for your opinion on the matter."

I inclined my head in deference. After all, what else was I going to do, "I meant no disrespect." In my head I thought of how enjoyable it would be to tell them both to get the fuck out of my life, but I would not do it. Truly, I didn't even really want to, leaving Eric's protection now would be extremely foolish. Eric moved to the middle of the bar and stood there for what felt like hours. And although I understood his need to say good-bye, I did have things to do this evening.

"Pam is going with you?" I asked hoping to jar him from his recollections and let me get on with my night. He nodded absently, "She left two days ago. She wanted to make certain the house was ready." I thought he might leave after that, but sadly, it was not to be. I thought I might still be sitting in the bar at dawn, but Sookie saved me.

The door swung open and she strode in looking exactly the same as she had the first time she had come in here. Sunlight in a dark place. A candle in a coal mine. Just not my candle. She smelled incredible.

"Eric?" she said without acknowledging me. He turned and smiled at her as she tapped her foot impatiently. "It's kind of a long drive to New Orleans, even the way you drive. We need to get on the road." He looked around the bar, reluctant to leave. Sookie said laughingly, "If you burn up en route the whole promotion thing is really a bust. C'mon shake a leg. It's bad enough that Hunter is going to sleep in the car all night because you didn't want us to drive alone."

He quirked an eyebrow at her neither annoyed by her presumptuousness or embarrassed that she was henpecking him in front of a subordinate. I would have been both. "I was just –"

"Saying goodbye, telling Bill how to do his job, I know." Her tone made it amusing as opposed to rude or at least he seemed to think so. She looked around. She seemed sad as well, which struck me as odd. Why would she miss Fangtasia? She looked at Eric, "It's going to be weird, not coming to see you at work anymore. Where will you even work? Like an office? Will you have an assistant that I should be jealous of? You better hire someone old…or male." He laughed at her. And she smiled broadly, "Hey I don't want anyone getting ideas just because I'm not around as much." She looked around again, "I think I'll always picture you here."

He looked around as well, "This bar was very good to me." She smiled at him and walked over to that same table. Honestly, it was a piece of particleboard. "Remember the first time I came in here with Bill?" She sounded as though she thought it was funny that I had been the one to bring her here. Probably to her it was. She touched the table as he had, "You were sitting here with Pam. Lord, you were beautiful!"

Eric crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her waist resting his chin on the top of her head, "Were?"

She looked up at him and smirked, "Yeah, well, you've really been letting yourself go. It's like a guy finds out your going to be around for hundreds of years and forget it, it all just goes to hell in a hand basket…Although you do dress better than you did then. Jeans and a vest, seriously?"

He chuckled into her hair and nuzzled her neck, "Bar clothes lover…and I believe you are also dressing better…lace up jeans, need I say more?" They laughed together in a conversation they had clearly had many times before. Eric leaned forward and kissed the top of her ear, "Perhaps if I had known what was walking into my life that night I would have dressed more appropriately." I, the unwilling eavesdropper on all of this, could not fathom what would have been a more appropriate outfit for Eric's first meeting of Sookie. Jeans and a vest seemed perfect to me, but perhaps I had a negative bias.

She leaned against him and sighed, "That or you might have run away screaming."

He threw back his head and laughed loudly. Sometimes even I was forced to admit them to be a stunning couple, mostly, I just found them to be obnoxious. This was one of the obnoxious times. "Never," he purred at her. And the mood in the room seemed to shift from light and teasing to thick with sexual tension, as though the air itself changed. I thought they might drop down on the floor and have sex at any moment. Sookie's scent was rapidly becoming overwhelming. "Vikings never run."

"Well, I guess it's good you don't want to run since you're stuck with me for more than a normal human lifespan." She dropped her eyes to the floor and looked uncertain. Again, I felt as if this was a conversation that they had had before.

He spun her around placing a finger under her chin and raised her face to his, "And it will not be long enough. It will not be anywhere near enough time together."

Tears fell down her cheeks and I envied him her love as I had many times in the past years. It seemed that Sookie would never be fully out of my system. I realized that as I watched her cry. I might resent her even hate her at times, but I was not over her. He wiped her tears away with his thumb and cupped her cheek with his hand. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist and she rubbed her cheek against his palm, "I'm sorry I don't know why I'm crying."

He gave her a soft smile, "I don't know why you are crying either lover. It is a happy thing. You are alive. I am Felipe's regent in Louisiana and no one will touch you. Pam is disseminating all sort of interesting stories about you. And until you become more skilled at masking your scent, I have the best smelling wife around. These are not reasons for tears."

She rolled her eyes at the mention of her scent and shook her head at him, "Let's get on the road." She started to walk out, but then returned to place a kiss on my cheek, "Bye Bill."

I nodded not wanting to over-dramatize anything; after all it was not really goodbye. Eric was regent and I was his Sheriff I was certain Sookie and I would be seeing each other again. In fact, I thought I saw something about a dinner next month, "I'm certain I will see you soon Sookie. Perhaps at the next function."

She didn't really respond, but simply said, "Good luck with everything."

It was Eric who offered explanation, "Sookie does not plan on attending official events or acting in that capacity." I was stunned. This was not done; she was his wife. His vampire wife not just his human wife, but I certainly knew better than to open my mouth. The last vampire to insult Sookie in this establishment had gone flying through the doors. I wanted to point out that she was his wife and protocol dictated a certain involvement, perhaps if he hadn't married her it would not be a problem, but of course, he'd had to marry her. Truly though what was the point, Eric did not care what anyone thought and Sookie would follow her own path, especially with Eric so graciously chopping down anything that might be in her way.

"That's right," Sookie piped in. "I'm done with vampires."

Eric grinned at her and she returned his broad smile. Apparently, I was the only adult in the room, "That sounds rather speciesist considering you are married to a vampire."  
She looked at Eric complete with goo-goo eyes, "The exception that proves the rule." Oh please.

In a blinding flash of motion, Eric picked her up and swung her around in a circle. If I could, I would have retched. He set her back on her feet and slapped her rather hard on the ass. She jumped in surprise and gave him a mildly outraged, yet indulgent look. "Let's go wife."

She shook her head, "Keep it under a hundred okay? And don't scare Hunter."

He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. Kissing it softly he stated, "Anything for you lover. Anything."

She smiled and allowed him to lead her out of the bar. I sat in my chair watching the door close behind them wondering if perhaps this was the way it had been meant to happen from the moment I brought her here. As the door swung shut I said to no one, "Good bye Sookie." And turned my attention to taking over as Sheriff.

_**A/N: Thanks so much to everyone that read this and Home Sweet Dead. They have both been so much fun to write and I'm sort of sad that I'm finished. After chapter 14 (Victor's death) and all of your great reviews asking about the future, I thought about taking this story in a different direction and continuing on to explore their life in New Orleans or Sookie's adjustment to all the changes in here life, but I decided against it. For me, this is where this story stops. Thanks again for reading. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it! **_


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